SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 125 



upon whose services this race so largely depends 

 for fertilization of seed, or it may have a blos- 

 som so dull in color or so minute that, as in some 

 of the Habenarias, a microscope is needed to make 

 its naming sure. The flowers may grow singly, on 

 a wholly leafless scape, in spikes or in droop- 

 ing panicles. They may have broad, fringed, thin, 

 narrow, or bearded lips like the showy fringed 

 purple and green Orchises and the rose -colored 

 Pogonia, or be pouched, as in the Cypripediums or 

 Ladies' Slippers, both foreign and native. You 

 will, however, find a strong family cast of feature, 

 an eccentric lip type in every one, and if you will 

 carefully scan the features of the crystal white 

 Rattlesnake Plantain and Ladies' Tresses of our 

 woods and low meadows, you will see the same 

 lineaments as in the rare greenhouse beauties which 

 peer through a veil of costly ferns to make a 

 bride's bouquet. 



Here in New England such Orchids as we have 

 mingle humbly in the earth with lowly plants of 

 bog and wood, and yet retain their marks of race 

 and breeding, for even the children that pick them 

 carelessly on their way "'cross lots" or going up 

 through the Tree -bridge woods to school, carrying 

 them in tight-fisted bunches to their teacher, 



