White to Green and Brown Flowers 113 



EARLY CORAL ROOT 



Corallorhiza irifida. Orchid Family 



Root: coralloid, branching. Stems: glabrous, clothed with closely 

 sheathing scales. Flowers: in long racemes on short minutely bracted 

 pedicels; sepals and petals narrow, lip short; spur a sac adnate to the 

 summit of the ovary. Fruit: capsule oblong. 



A plant impossible to mistake, for its roots are exactly 

 like branches of coral, composed of thick, white, blunt fibres, 

 and may be found in moist shady places. The flowers grow 

 in a raceme on single, thick, fleshy stems, that are clothed 

 with closely sheathed bracts and are of a queer purplish- 

 green colour, frequently marked with white. It has no 

 leaves. 



The Coral Root is a saprophyte; that is to say, it lives 

 upon the dead and decomposing forms of other plants, and 

 this explains why it is such a vegetable degenerate of the 

 beautiful family of orchids. It has lost its leaves, also its 

 chlorophyll, or honest green colouring matter, through its 

 bad habits, and to-day belongs to that pirate tribe which 

 feeds upon food already assimilated by another, and thereby 

 incurs the displeasure of Nature, whose laws demand honest 

 conduct in her kingdom as sternly as do those of man ; and 

 so, when the Coral Root refused to manufacture its own 

 upbuilding materials out of the carbon dioxide of the atmos- 

 phere, and proceeded to prey upon decaying matter, Nature 

 took away its leaves and chlorophyll and only left it suffi- 

 cient branching extensions at the base to secure it in the soil. 



Corallorhiza inaculata, or Large Coral Root, grows as 

 high as twenty inches and has purplish-green flower-stalks 

 clothed with scales. The numerous flowers are purplish- 

 brown, and the lip white-spotted and lined with purple, the 



