AMERICAN WILD FLOWERS 473 



a single basal leaf and an erect cluster of small rose colored 

 flowers with a white lip. The showy orchis, found from New 

 England to Nebraska, has a pair of basal leaves and several 

 conspicuous purplish flowers with white lips. The leafy green 

 ORCHIDS are stouter plants with narrow stem leaves and a ter- 

 minal spike of yellowish green flowers. The fringed orchids 

 include a number of northern and eastern species; some are 

 bright orange while others are white, green, lavender or purple. 

 In all cases the lip of the flower is divided into segments. 



The Tw^AYBLADES are the smallest members of the Orchid 

 Family, flourishing in wet meadows and bogs of our eastern and 

 central states. The small flowers may be greenish purple, green- 

 ish yellow or greenish white in color with very small sepals and 

 petals. Ladies' tresses, another group of inconspicuous orchids, 

 has grass-like leaves and small whitish flowers, each with a 

 fringed margin. Pogonia or snakemouth is a showy flowered 

 plant of small size bearing solitary nodding rose colored white 

 or pink flowers with a crested and fringed lip. Calypso, one of 

 the rarest of our native orchids, produces rounded basal leaves 

 and solitary purple, pink and yellow flowers whose petals and 

 sepals spread out above the crested purple lip. 



Such are a representative few of the families of flowering 

 plants which constitute our native flora. There are numerous 

 other flowers, in isolated families or of local occurrence, which 

 have by necessity been omitted. But perhaps enough have been 

 presented to open new vistas in the plant world, and to make the 

 latter a more intelligible assemblage of plants grouped together 

 into families on the basis of similarities of flower structure, rather 

 than a heterogeneous mixture of individual species. 



