124 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 



Time o' Year thus keenly sensed the leading 

 feature of the entire Orchid tribe unusualness. 

 To the general public, even the word Orchid has 

 a foreign sound that conjures up a flower of glow- 

 ing color perched bird -like in the tree -tops of a 

 tropic jungle, or entertained as an honored guest in 

 a hothouse, where all conditions are arranged to 

 suit the caprice of its air -feeding appetite ; for to 

 the majority the Orchid is, above all things, an 

 air -plant. Yet of the five thousand or more species 

 that range over the temperate and warmer portions 

 of the globe, it is only in the tropics that the epi- 

 phytes, drawing their sustenance from the air, are 

 of frequent occurrence. 



The tribe of the Orchid comprises many house- 

 holds under one general roof, and the habits of 

 this original family are as variable as their colors. 

 An Orchid may grow from a bulb, a hard, coral - 

 like corm, or a mat of fleshy or tuberous roots. 

 It may live in a tree -top in torrid regions, or it 

 may inhabit the depths of cold, sunless northern 

 bogs ; it may lend rich color to the grasses of an 

 open meadow, or flourish equally well in the dry, 

 crumbling mold of evergreen woods. It may, ac- 

 cording to its kind, bear flowers a hand's breadth 

 in size, of exquisite coloring to attract the insects 



