106 White to Green and Brown Flowers 



traveller. It is usually in shady places, where the soil is 

 moist and rich, that these little velvety orchids are found. 

 The dull white sacs, hairy inside and spotted with bright 

 red, are quite unmistakable ; the stalks are leafy and usually 

 bear only a single terminal flower, though occasionally two 

 shell-like blooms adorn the fat juicy stem, one at its apex 

 and the other a couple of inches lower down. 



There is a rich tropical beauty about orchids strongly sug- 

 gestive of the Orient. They do not seem to be at home in 

 the northern mountain fastnesses, but rather to belong to a 

 world of cloudless skies and riotous foliage, where exotic 

 flowers are set like jewels in the lavish luxuriance of the 

 torrid zone. 



WHITE REIN ORCHIS 



Habenaria dilatata. Orchid Family 



Stems: thick, fleshy, one to two feet high. Leaves: lanceolate, obtuse. 

 Flowers: spike long, white, very fragrant, bracted ; sepals ovate, obtuse; 

 lip entire, dilated; anther-sacs parallel; glands close together; stigma 

 with a trowel-shaped beak. 



To walk through the woods, deep and dark, where the 

 trees and shrubs 1 grow densely side by side and flowers are 

 few and far between; and then to suddenly emerge into the 

 open, where the sun's light is flooding across the marsh- 

 lands, carpeted by myriads of tall White Rein Orchis, is a 

 pleasure so dazzling that, once experienced, it will never be 

 forgotten. 



Fragrant as hyacinths, these exquisite snowy orchids 

 grow to a great height in the mountain marshes, and so 

 beautiful and wonderfully delicate are their blossoms that 

 travellers long to transplant them to some lowland garden, 

 in order to see their velvety spikes grow and grace civiliza- 

 tion with a woodland loveliness. But as a rule this experi- 



