THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



117 



gonia has a tuberous root ; the delicate blossoms, one or more 

 in number (3-7 according to Chapman), vary in color from pale 

 rose to pure white and have a slight odor. The lip is prettily 

 cleft or lobed, and has in place of a crest, three tiny green lines, 

 which I am inclined to suspect secrete nectar. " A comparison 

 between the different Pogonias," says Meehan, "establishes 

 confidence in the doctrine that all the parts of a flower are but 

 modifications of simple leaves — in P. pcndula, the vegetative 

 force seems feeble, and spends itself in often-repeated attempts ; 

 hence small leaves and insignificant flowers are scattered all 

 along the stem, but in P. vcrticillata the force exercised is 

 evidently greater, not only in amount but also in degree, and its 

 action is more concentrated. The stem, therefore, instead of 

 slowly elongating and sending out a leaf and a flower here and 

 there, rapidly draws in its spiral coils, thus producing only a 

 whorl of leaves, and annihilating all tendency to flower in the 

 axils, after which it makes another growth and then another 

 sudden arrest and coil, resulting in a large single flower. In P. 

 ophioglossoides the acting force was intermediate in intensity. 

 Having coiled up the primordial leaves to form the flower stem, 

 the force was not powerful enough to arrest the formation of 

 the leaves suddenly, and it therefore still left them somewhat 

 scattered. The lowermost leaf is little more than a sheathing 

 scale. The next shows by the groove down the stem oppo- 

 site how very near it came to diverging still more than it actu- 

 ally does from the interior leaves out of which the stem is 

 formed ; and the upper one by its greatly reduced size, reveals 

 the fact that the force employed in arresting the elongating 

 growth and in working up all the separate parts into a flower 

 is now in active operation." * 



Spiranthes simplex, the Simple Spiranthes, " Aug.-Sept.," a 

 low, narrow-spiked species, graces the dry and sandy pastures 

 of the three southern States, especially along the coast ; scarce, 



* Native Flowers and Ferns, I. Series, Vol. I. 



