WHITE 



with the cool chaste beauty of the meadow rue. The staminate 

 flowers of this plant are especially delicate and feathery. 



LADIES' TRESSES. 



Spiranthes cernua. Orchis Family. 



Stem. Leafy below, leafy-bracted above; six to twenty inches high. 

 Leaves. Linear-lance-shaped; the lowest elongated. Flowers. White; 

 fragrant ; the lips wavy or crisped ; growing in slender spikes. 



This pretty little orchid is found in great abundance in Sep- 

 tember and October. The botany relegates it to " wet places," 

 but I have seen dry upland pastures as well as low -lying swamps 

 profusely flecked with its slender, fragrant spikes. The braided 

 appearance of these spikes would easily account for the popular 

 name of ladies' tresses ; but we learn that the plant's English 

 name was formerly " ladies' traces" from a fancied resemblance 

 between its twisted clusters and the lacings which played so im- 

 portant a part in the feminine toilet. I am told that in parts of 

 New England the country people have christened the plant 

 * * wild hyacinth. ' ' 



The flowers of S. gracilis are very small, and grow in a much 

 more slender, one-sided spike than those of S. cernua. They 

 are found in the dry woods and along the sandy hill-sides from 

 July onward. 



DEVIL'S BIT. BLAZING STAR. 



Chamcelirium Carolinianum. Lily Family. 



One to four feet high, the staminate plant taller. Leaves. The lower 

 wedge-shaped, obtuse, tapering into a petiole ; the upper, linear, pointed. 

 Flowers. White. The pistillate and staminate growing on different plants, 

 in a long wand-like, spiked raceme. Perianth. Of six white segments ; 

 staminate flowers with six stamens, pistillate flowers with one pistil having 

 three short styles. 



From May to July the oft-times nodding staminate clusters, 

 and the stiff erect pistillate spikes of the devil's bit may be found 

 in many of our wet meadows, from Massachusetts to Florida. 



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