SOME HUMBLE ORCHIDS 131 



and often giving the many local titles, in parenthesis 

 as it were, to help the unlearned to establish flower 

 identity. Yet when a common name, spicy with 

 the odor of the new western world, is given to a 

 plant, I think we should keep it, in spite of Lin- 

 naean or pre-Linnaean nomenclature, and call our 

 little group of inflated pouched Orchids, Moccasin 

 Flowers, instead of Ladies' Slippers, as Britton 

 does, a general title which confuses their person- 

 ality with the European species. 



Ladies' Slipper is not a word in keeping with 

 Hemlock and Beech woods, but the word Moccasin 

 throws meaning into the black shadows and brings 

 to mind the stone axe and flint arrow-heads found 

 not long ago on the edge of a newly -plowed field, 

 that was but recently a piece of these same woods. 



"With careless joy we thread the woodland way 



And reach her broad domain. 

 Thro* sense of strength and beauty free as air, 



We feel our savage kin: 

 And thus alone, with conscious meaning, wear 



The Indian's Moccasin." 



We stopped at a point where a pair of Chestnut 

 stumps indicate the entrance to a wood road whose 

 guardian gate-posts and rails now lie among the 

 Ferns, keeping shape until touched, and then sepa- 



