80 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



been dotted with water-lilies and spangled along its marshy- 

 edge with the leaves of the sun-dew, and here, side by side, 

 grew the objects of our search, Calopogon pulchellits and Po- 

 gonia ophioglossoides, whose harsh, and to me always irritating 

 names, seemed at that time peculiarly inharmonious. 



These Orchids may be styled inseparable, for there are few 

 extensive bogs that do not afford both ; and the more danger- 

 ous the morass, the more untrustworthy the scow you have 

 discovered on the shore of lake or creek, the more confident 

 you may be that your prize is awaiting you — just out of reach. 

 The genus Calopogon is represented in the Eastern United 

 States by three or four species, but one of which favors New 

 England, and this, sometimes known as the 

 Grass Pink, wears colors that one would not 

 naturally select to go together. Nature has 

 combined the white and yellow of the bearded 

 lip and the purple-pink of the other parts with 

 Fig. 2 4 .-Flower of her usual boldness, but the result is not suf- 

 c. ruLCHELLus. fi c i e ntly agreeable to cause us to notice the 

 flower particularly, on that account alone. The peculiarity of 

 the genus is that the ovary is not twisted as in all our other 

 Orchids, and the lip is therefore in its proper place on the 

 upper side. 



"The type of most Orchids is ternary," says Meehan, in 

 Native Flowers and Ferns ; " in other words, three leaves form 

 a verticil in them whenever the spiral growth is rapidly 

 arrested, and the spiral coil is brought down to a plane. We 

 generally lpok for three leaves on the flower stem of an Orchid 

 of this kind ; but in this species, C. pulchellus, only the central 

 one has been developed, while the lower has advanced no 

 farther than a reddish-brown sheath, and the third or upper one 

 has been so entirely absorbed by the stem that only a small 

 reddish-brown spot is left to show where the leaf might have 

 been. In the flower, however, the ternary character is better 



