38 



THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



spicuous, even when it grows in clumps, that one may have 

 minute directions given him and yet be unable to put finger 

 upon it at once. The Ram's-head does not confine itself to 

 low or damp ground, but is sometimes met with, in Vermont at 

 least, on dry hill-sides at the feet of pines. I strongly suspect 

 that some elf, refused a night's lodging in the cradle of a Pink 

 Lady's Slipper, and faring no better on application to a Yellow 

 Lady's Slipper, originated the pert little Ram's-head as a cari- 

 cature of both. 



The musky smell possessed by many Orchids, and used, it is 

 supposed, to attract night-flying insects, is very noticeable in 

 our Lady's Slippers, particularly in their roots. It is an earthy 

 scent that one grows to like and to associate with nature, as he 

 does the smell of a wood fire. The fact that plants of the 

 Orchis family rarely grow in abundance, though a single one 

 like the English O. maciilata produces over 186,000 seeds, and its 

 grandchildren, at this rate of increase, would nearly carpet the 

 globe, has been remarked on at length by Mr. Darwin.* Bur- 

 roughs, in one of his most successful descriptions, accuses Cypri- 

 pedium of affecting privacy, declaring that when he comes across 

 it, he seems to be intruding on some very exclusive company ; 

 and of our native species, the Pink Lady's Slipper is apt, for 

 reasons before stated, to be found in an isolated state, but I 

 have counted fifty blossoms in a space less than fifty feet square, 

 have picked fifteen blossoms of the Small Yellow Lady's Slip- 

 per from one clump, and noticing, one day, as I sat down to 

 rest in a cedar wood, twenty young Ram's-heads within reach, 

 I applauded the remark of a companion who was loaded with 

 equally valuable trophies :• " the only really rare thing in this 

 region appears to be grass!" Even these are instances of 

 scarcity when compared with the number of spent seed-vessels 

 I find each spring. How easily insects discover these plants is 



* Mtlller says, his brother " estimated over 1,750,000 seeds in a single capsule of 

 a Maxillaria." 



