PINK 



ness, for there is something peculiarly enticing in these fresh, 

 vigorous-looking flowers. They are quite unlike most of their 

 fragile contemporaries, for they seem to be already imbued with 

 the glowing warmth of summer, and to have no memory of that 

 snowy past which appears to leave its imprint on so many blos- 

 soms of the early year. 



In waste places,, from June until September or later, we find 

 the small clustered pink flowers, which open transiently in the 

 sunshine of the sleepy catchfly, S. antirrhina. 



PINK LADY'S SLIPPER. MOCCASON-FLOWER. 



Cypripedium acaule. Orchis Family (p. 17). 



Scape. Eight to twelve inches high, two-leaved at base, downy, one-flow- 

 ered. Leaves. Two, large, many-nerved and plaited, sheathing at the base. 

 Flower. Solitary, purple-pink. Perianth. Of three greenish spreading 

 sepals, the two lateral petals narrow, spreading, greenish, the pink lip in the 

 shape of a large inflated pouch. Stamens. Two, the short filaments each 

 bearing a two-celled anther. Stigma. Broad, obscurely three-lobed, moist 

 and roughish. 



Graceful and tall the slender, drooping stem, 



With two broad leaves below, 

 Shapely the flower so lightly poised between, 



And warm her rosy glow, 



writes Elaine Goodale of the moccason-flower. This is a blos- 

 som whose charm never wanes. It seems to be touched with 

 the spirit of the deep woods, and there is a certain fitness in its 

 Indian name, for it looks as though it came direct from the home 

 of the red man. All who have found it in its secluded haunts 

 will sympathize with Mr. Higginson's feeling that each specimen 

 is a rarity, even though he should find a hundred to an acre. 

 Gray assigns it to " dry or moist woods," while Mr. Baldwin 

 writes : " The finest specimens I ever saw sprang out of cush- 

 ions of crisp reindeer moss high up among the rocks of an ex- 

 posed hill-side, and again I have found it growing vigorously in 

 almost open swamps, but nearly colorless from excessive mois- 

 ture." The same writer quotes a lady who is familiar with it in 

 the Adirondacks. She says : " It seems to have a great fondness 

 for decaying wood, and I often see a whole row perched like 



180 



