A FEW NATIVE ORCHIDS 2 13 



more ample passage in acaule would suggest the 

 medium-sized Bombus as better adapted— as the 

 experiment here- 

 with pictured from 

 my own experience 

 many times would 

 seem to verify, while 

 a honey-bee intro- 

 duced into the flow- 

 er failed to fulfil 

 the demonstration, 

 emerging at the little doorway above without a 

 sign of the cordial parting token. 



Occasionally I suppose a fool bumblebee is en- 

 trapped within the petal bower and fails to find 

 the proper exit, or it may be— much less a fool- 

 having run the gantlet once too often, decides to 

 escape the ordeal ; hence the occasional mutilated 

 blossom already described. 



One of the most beautiful of our orchids, 

 though its claims to admiration in this instance 

 are chiefly confined to the foliage, is the common 

 " Rattlesnake - Plantain," its prostrate rosettes of 

 exquisitely white reticulated leaves carpeting 

 many a nook in the shadows of the hemlocks, its 

 dense spikes of yellowish -white blossoms signal- 

 ling their welcome to the bees, and fully compen- 



