Wild Flowers East of the Rockies 87 



SMALL PURPLE FRINGED ORCHIS (Habenaria 



psycodes) has pale purplish flowers in a dense cylin- 

 drical spike terminating a leafy stem, about 1 or 1 1-2 

 feet tall. The spreading flower-tip is 3-parted and 

 fringed; sepals rounded, petals spatulate and slight- 

 ly toothed. The leaves are lanceolate and, like those 

 of the fringed orchids, grow smaller as they ap- 

 proach the top of the stem. Flowers in July and 

 August in wet meadows or swamps, from Newfound- 

 land to Manitoba and southwards. 



LARGE PURPLE FRINGED ORCHIS (H. fim- 

 briata) is the largest and perhaps the most beautiful 

 of the genus. The pale purple flowers are nearly 

 twice as large as those of the last species; the lip is 

 more deeply fringed. The densely flowered spike is 

 about two inches in diameter and often is twelve 

 inches long. The leafy stem attains heights of from 

 1 to 5 feet. It is a magnificent plant, the sight of 

 which is well worth the inconveniences necessary to 

 visit its haunts. It grows in swamps throughout the 

 U. S. and southern Canada. 



All the orchids of this genus are cross-fertilized 

 through the agency of insects. The long slender 

 spur, of most of them, is peculiarly adapted to the 

 tongues of sphinx moths and some of the butterflies. 

 In trying to reach the extreme end of the nectar tube, 

 the moth presses its face into the opening. Its large 

 eyes come in contact with a sticky button to which 

 two pollen masses are attached by slender stalks. 

 When the head is withdrawn these are firmly at- 

 tached to the eyes. When he reaches the next flower, 

 these masses are in the correct position to be deposit- 

 ed on a sticky stigma, just where they belong. While 

 we might think a moth would be greatly inconvenienc- 

 ed by these incumbrances, we must remember that 

 his eyes are composed of numerous small ones so 

 that the loss of sight of a few is unnoticed. 



