Minnesota Plant Life. 231 



lected the proper nutrition of the plantlet in the seed. For this 

 reason orchids are everywhere rare plants. One scarcely ever 

 finds them in great beds such as those in which many other sorts 

 of plants habitually occur, and possibly their infrequency may 

 be attributed to the failure on their part to produce sufficiently 

 virile seeds. 



The habitat of Minnesota orchids is somewhat various. The 

 moccasin flowers which, especially in their fruiting season, are 

 poisonous to the touch like poison ivy, are to be met with 

 in tamarack swamps or drier localities throughout the state. 

 There are six varieties in Minnesota, differing in the size, shape 

 and color of the flowers. One of them, the yellow moccasin, 

 is the legal "state flower." About a dozen varieties of rein- 

 orchids may be found, and in these several flowers are produced 

 in a spicate cluster. The flowers in some of the rein-orchids 

 are fringed like those of the fringed gentians, and one, with 

 rather large purple flowers, is not uncommon in damp places 

 both north and south. Another variety with fringed petals is 

 found in tamarack swamps. In this the flowers are greenish 

 or almost white. Still another type of orchid, not very com- 

 mon anywhere except in the woods north of Lake Superior, is 

 the rattlesnake plantain. In this the leaves are shaped much 

 like those of the common plantain and are curiously mottled 

 with different shades of green. The tress-orchids are delicate, 

 slender plants, six inches or so in height, not uncommon in pine 

 woods near the bases of old stumps. They may be distin- 

 guished from the other orchids by their somewhat spirally 

 twisted spikes of flowers. 



Perhaps the most ornamental native orchid, when seen un- 

 der favorable conditions, is the Calopogon or grass-pink. This 

 is most prettily conspicuous in northern peat-bogs, where it 

 grows among the cranberries and kalmias, often forming 

 patches of considerable size. The flowers are of a beautiful 

 shade of purplish pink and are visible for some distance on 

 account of their brilliant color. 



The coral-roots have very small and poorly developed leaves. 

 They are humus plants, deriving their nutriment to a large 

 extent through the cooperation of fungus filaments in the super- 

 ficial layers of their rootstocks, and the singular coral-like ap- 



