128 SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 



and furred inside with soft hairs. It has a 

 curious, overlapped, double -pointed toe of pale 

 yellow; a little rosette of shaded pink and yellow 

 trims the instep, while the narrower petals blow 

 in the breeze like ribbons meant to fasten the shoe 

 about the ankle of its phantom wearer. 



Orchids have the parallel -veined leaves that we 

 associate with Lilies, and in these also there is 

 much variety, the leaves of the species growing in 

 woods and open places where they have plenty of 

 room being larger and more fully developed than 

 those that have to struggle through a heavy under- 

 growth of grass and rank weeds in meadow and 

 bog. So that with our native Orchids the leaves 

 range from those of the Moccasin Flowers, where 

 there is either a single pair as long and broad as 

 the -hand, or several large leaves growing up the 

 stalk, Bellwort fashion, to the thread-like appen- 

 dages of the slender grass-growing Ladies' Tresses 

 or Tracies, as the word once read. 



If the of ten -advanced theory is true that all the 

 plants now bearing flowers originally consisted only 

 of leaves like ferns, and that from these leaves the 

 ornamental parts of the flowers were developed, 

 then the Orchid has kept many traces of its 

 ancient descent, for there are several species of our 



