THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 113 



to tear them off with its mandibles. Some bees which we 

 caught with pollinia on their heads had them attached to their 

 fore-legs when examined shortly afterward. These frequently 

 successful efforts on the part of the bees to free themselves 

 from the pollinia explain why we often find whole pollinia or 

 pairs of pollinia attached to the flowers, generally in the neigh- 

 borhood of the stigma." 



These flowers I ha/e just described had a rank smell, and I 

 do not remember that I ever found a really fragrant specimen 

 of this Fringed-Orchis, though it is the only Habenaria called 

 fragrant by Gray. 



In some parts of Vermont, H. psycodes bears the picturesque 

 name of " Flaming Orchis," which ought rather to be trans- 

 ferred to the Yellow Fringed-Orchis, H. ciliaris, fit symbol of 

 the wealth and glow of August ; resplendent in orange and 

 gold, not only in sepals and petals but even in spurs and 

 ovaries, and admitting but one rival, the cardinal flower, burn- 

 ing its torch well into September in Northern New England. 

 In Connecticut and Rhode Island, where it is local but abun- 

 dant, it is not unfrequently met with in July. Near Plymouth, 

 Massachusetts, as I am informed, there is a bog in which it is 

 " almost a weed," but one must go west or south to get it by 

 the wholesale. There are places near New York, for instance, 

 where it grows by the acre. If I had my own way, it should 

 never grow in bogs among coarse pitcher plants; it needs a 

 richer background ; but in ferny meadows bordering a sandy 

 brook, as it does in a jealously guarded spot I know of in 

 Guilford, Conn. ; and if I ever write a romance of Indian life, 

 my dusky heroine, Birch Tree or Trembling Fawn, shall meet 

 her lover with a wreath of this Orchis on her head. 



The White Fringed-Orchis, H. blephariglottis, known as the 

 Feather-leaved Orchis in some localities on Cape Cod, grows 

 with H. ciliaris, and as Gray well says, " commonly takes its 

 place northward." This species does not grow as high, has 



