70 Bog-Trotting for Orchids 



On the edge of the water among the ferns and brakes 

 I found the leaves of the Purple-Fringed Orchis {Habe- 

 naria psy codes) ^ but no plants likely to bloom this 

 season. 



When I reached the mill, I placed my treasures in 

 the buggy, and started after that part of my load which 

 I had left around the hill. On my return, I gathered 

 some waxen, crimson cones of the beautiful tamarack 

 tree by the path. When I bade farewell to little Mer- 

 win and his mother, who lived in the mill-house, I 

 asked them to watch for the rose - purple orchids, — 

 Pogonias and I^imodorums, — which were now due any 

 day, east of the mill. The boy was very earnest and 

 observing, and I knew that I now had a comrade to 

 guard over the Bogs of Etchowog. 



Students from Williams College, and tourists from 

 near and afar seek these swamps of Pownal for bo- 

 tanical specimens, and Merwin had often been their 

 guide to the haunts of these rare treasures. He told 

 me that students from WiUiams had, the year before, 

 gathered innumerable pink and purple flowers in these 

 marshes, as well as the beautiful bearded spikes of the 

 Buckbean. 



For a succession of years — during all of President 

 Carter's term at Williams College at least — it has been 

 the unique custom to bank the chancel of the Congre- 

 gational Church with the Showy Moccasin-Flowers 

 and Maiden-Hair Ferns, on Baccalaureate Sunday, — 

 which occurs usually about June twentieth. These 

 gorgeously colored orchids reach the height of their 



