THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



79 



Orchis, H. obtasata, contented with a few inches in stature 

 and two quiet colors, green and white. "The flowers are 

 rather large for the size of the plant ; the anther-cells are 

 curved like a bow and widely separated." Sir William Hooker 

 somewhere gives a plate of this Habenaria, and in an enlarged 

 drawing of the lip shows two oval spots at the base — these 

 serving, probably, to attract insects by secreting nectar. You 

 come across this species almost anywhere in the Green Moun- 

 tains (particularly on Mansfield, Camel's Hump and Killington 

 Peak) from the last of June, on through July; in the sub- 

 Alpine region of the White Mountains in August ; and early 

 in the same "month at Mt. Desert. Gray follows this Habe- 

 naria north of Lake Superior, and the Geological Exploration 

 of the 40th Parallel made known its existence in Colorado. 



There is a sandy tract of country lying to the north-east of 

 Burlington, where patches of original forest alternate with 

 second-growth timber, and roads go zigzagging as if trying to 

 find their way out — a fascinating exploring ground if one is 

 not vexed by the dust and the depth to which his wheels sink, 

 because apparently so unpromising. I was not favorably dis- 

 posed toward it, when introduced, one day toward the middle 

 of July, for I was returning from Mt. Mansfield, and the 

 impressions produced by the mighty scenery left behind ; the 

 gorges, the leafy silences, the contest of mist and wind on the 

 summit, still had me in their hold, but as we turned from the 

 highway into a narrow track and wound under low-hanging 

 boughs of pine and oak, the despised region began to rejoice 

 and blossom at every step. In the grassy openings where 

 feasts of late strawberries tempted us to loiter, stood row after 

 row of Turk's-cap lilies, their brilliancy somewhat softened by 

 the bindweeds that thrust up their cool white cups among the 

 ferns already dappled with brown and gold. At last we parted 

 the branches and came out on the shore of a little pond, so 

 lonely and so black that it would have depressed us had it not 



