Hail-Storms at E-tcHoAvog ^'j 



Orchids may in many instances produce seeds in 

 abundance, but why the)^ do not reproduce more seed- 

 lings is a problem not easily solved nor remedied. 



Darwin once estimated that a single spike of the 

 English Orchis {Orchis masculata) produced over 

 186,000 seeds, and that at this rate its grandchildren 

 would soon carpet the earth; while Miiller says also 

 that his brother estimated 1,750,000 seeds in a single 

 capsule of another species of the family {Maxil/aria). 

 We must remember that the species of Orchidacea are 

 not as a rule self-fertilized, as are the more abundant 

 and common flowers and weeds, which often cover 

 acres of swampy land and fields of waste land. Our 

 native orchids are wholly dependent upon insects for 

 fertilization and cross-fertilization; yet, for some cause 

 or other, comparatively few of the ripened and fertile 

 seeds germinate and reproduce new seedlings. Our 

 Moccasin-Flowers do not appear to multiply in many 

 swamps, while species of Orchis and Habenaria are 

 never abundant in this region. 



For years now, I have noticed large groups of the 

 Showy Lady's Slippers growing in Rattlesnake Swamp 

 near Uoyd Spring, and I can find little increase in the 

 number of plants, or the size of the old snarl of roots. 

 In fact, they seem to be diminishing in numbers. 



There is an old colony in this region that has stood 

 for about seventy-five years, much the same in size, on 

 the authority of the old inhabitants of this neighbor- 

 hood. It stands to-day among the shrub-like willows 

 and swamp maples, at the feet of little scrub pines and 



