90 Bog-Trotting for Orchids 



perfume, — and its more elegant cousin, the Calopogon, 

 (now called Limodorum) by its side." ' 



Yet Thoreau had a different impression of the rose- 

 pink Pogonia's fragrance, and says in his notes in 

 Summer^ on June 21, 1852 : " The adder' s-tongue 

 arethusa smells exactly like a snake. How singular 

 that in Nature, too, beauty and offensiveness should 

 be thus combined! " ^ On July 7, 1852, he again men- 

 tions these species of orchids: "The verj^ handsome 

 * pink-purple ' flowers of the Calopogon pulchellus (now 

 known as Limodorum tuberosum) enrich the grass all 

 around the edge of Hubbard's blueberry swamp, and 

 are now in their prime. The Arethusa bulbosa, * crys- 

 talline purple,' Pogonia ophioglossoides^ snake-mouthed 

 (tongued) arethusa, * pale-purple,' and the Calopogon 

 pulchellus, grass-pink, ' pink-purple,' make one family 

 in my mind (next to the purple orchis, or with it), be- 

 ing ^o^QX^ par excellence, all flower, naked flowers, and 

 difi&cult, at least the Calopogons, to preserve. But they 

 are flowers, excepting the first, at least, without a 

 name. Pogonia ! Calopogon ! ! They would blush 

 still deeper if they knew what names man had given 

 them." ' 



The Pogonia seems to bloom slightly in advance of 

 lyimodorum, and is a delicate, waxen-pink flower. It 

 raises its single terminal blossom about six inches 

 high amid the tall grasses of the swampy meadow. It 



' T. W. Higginson, The Procession of the Flowers, p. 21. 

 ^ Thoreau, Summer, p. 198. 

 ^Ibid, p. 347. 



