156 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [13:4— April, 19 17 



at intervals a scarlet sentinel by the side of my wood path ; the 

 meadow lily beckoned to me from the meadow below as I strolled 

 down the western lane, a whole troop of them tall as my head and 

 sometimes eight or ten lilies nodding on one stem. Their orange 

 petals had taken the sun in spite of their drooping till their maroon 

 freckles made work for me in copying. Farther out in the meadow 

 where unless the weather was for a long time dry, the roots of the 

 rough grass were immersed, searching one day, in rubber boots, I 

 found hidden among the grass roots several minute flowers that set 

 me to wondering again of what use they were. There was that 

 smallest of the St. John's wort family, two or three inches high with 

 its little yellow blossom, and the curious {carnivorous?) little sun- 

 dew with its pretty rosette of tiny round leaves fringed with red 

 hairs and its very small white flower on a steam scarcely two inches 

 high. Why were these curiously wrought and beautiful things 

 hidden here where one, even a fairy, might live a lifetime on the 

 farm and never find them? Perchance some little being incon- 

 ceivably small has, with his family, his home in the tremendous 

 shelter of one of these fringed leaves and is happy, and the erect 

 stock two inches high topped by two or three white blossoms may 

 be the beacon to guide him back home when he travels far away — 

 a foot or so. How do I know? 



One day early in June came the report that Cypripedium 

 spectabile was in blossom. Up to that time in my life I had existed 

 in some way without knowing there was such a flower. That 

 Orchids were an irresponsible race, that you were never sure what 

 they might take it into their heads to do in the way of beauty or 

 oddity to surprise you I had already learned but as yet had become 

 personally acquainted with none but the beautiful pink lady slipper 

 Cypripedium acaule. The Spectabile, the queen of slippers, should 

 be seen growing in its proud beauty to be appreciated. In blossom 

 it stands from two to three feet high the stalk sheathed with its 

 large clasping leaves almost up to the flower which rears itself in 

 truly regal grandeur clothed in white and purple, by far the largest 

 and noblest orchid growing wild in these latitudes. 



And now as if following their queen the whole floral world 

 seemed to blaze out till one must think nothing more in the way 

 of blowing could possibly be done. Oxe-eye daisies, black-eyed 

 Susan, Queen Ann's lace, blue vervain, yarrow, fire weeds, rock 

 saxifrages and innumerable others covered all the fields, hillsides, 

 roadsides, brooksides till there really was room for nothing more. 



