6 AMONG THE WILD-FLOWERS 



in May, and has the fragrance of hyacinths. 

 It does not affect the rocks, like all the other 

 flowers of this family. 



My second new acquaintance the same season 

 was the showy lady's slipper. Most of the floral 

 ladies leave their slippers in swampy places in 

 the woods ; only the stemless one (acaule) 

 leaves hers on dry ground before she reaches 

 the swamp, commonly under evergreen trees, 

 where the carpet of pine needles will not hurt 

 her feet. But one may penetrate many wet, 

 mucky places in the woods before he finds the 

 prettiest of them all, the showy lady's slipper, 

 — the prettiest slipper, but the stoute<«t and 

 coarsest plant; the flower large and very 

 showy, white, tinged with purple in f ront^ : the 

 stem two feet high, very leafy, and coarser 

 than bear-weed. Report had come to me 

 through my botanizing neighbor, that in a 

 certain quaking sphagnum bog in the woods 

 the showy lady's slipper could be found. "The 

 locality proved to be the marrowy grave of an 

 extinct lake or black tarn. On the borders of 

 it the white azalea was in bloom, fast fading. 

 In the midst of it were spruces and black ash 

 and giant ferns, and low in the spongy, mossr 

 bottom, the pitcher plant. The lady's slipper 

 grew in little groups and companies all about 

 Never have I beheld a prettier sight, — so gay, 

 so festive, so holiday-looking. Were they so 

 many gay bonnets rising above the foliage, or 

 were they flocks of white doves with purple- 

 stained breasts just lifting up their wings . to 



