io8 Bog-Trotting for Orchids 



According to Darwin, orchids with short-spurred 

 nectaries are fertilized by bees and flies ; while those 

 with long spurs are visited by moths and butterflies 

 with long proboscides. 



The structure of various species calls for special in- 

 sects to fertilize and cross-fertilize them. The failure to 

 attract the proper agencies has led Nature slowly to 

 change the organs of many orchids so that self-ferti- 

 lization might be accomplished. In this way, "an enor- 

 mous amount of extinction" must have taken place. 

 A wide gap of obliteration intervenes between species 

 of Orchis and Cypripedium, the former being the most 

 highly organized and the latter the lowest, or abnormal 

 species of the Orchid Family. 



The species included under the great genus Ha- 

 benaria grow more abundantly than any other on 

 our continent. It is not unusual to find five or six 

 species of this genus in a neighborhood such as the 

 Bogs of Etchowog or Witch Hollow region. In the 

 latter locality I found four species of Habenaria, two 

 of Cypripedium, one of Achroanthes, and one of Or- 

 chis, making in all eight rare species for a very small 

 area of swamp-land. 



Soon after I reached home with my basket of roots, 

 the front porch exhibited a long row of pots and tin 

 cans, where stood my transplanted treasures, ultimately 

 to be placed in the garden of a friend in New Haven. 



It has always been a source of wonder that Thoreau 

 did not find more species of the Orchid Family in the 

 conifer swamps in the Maine woods. His journeys 



