156 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



Little spikes of greenish-white flowers they are, grow- 

 ing out of what looks like a twisted or braided stem. 

 Of them all the most interesting to me is the grass- 

 leaved lady's tresses (Gyrostachys prcecox), where the 

 flowers grow round and round the stem in a perfect 

 spiral. 



As I went on with my hunting, I learned that not 

 all the members of the orchis family are beautiful. 

 There is the coral root, with tiny dull brownish- 

 purple flowers, which one finds growing in dry woods, 

 often near colonies of the Indian pipe. The green 

 and the ragged-fringed orchids are other disap- 

 pointing members. Yet, to a confirmed collector, 

 even these poor relations of the family are full of 

 interest. In fact, the second rarest orchid of our 

 American list — the celebrated crane-fly orchid 

 (Tipularia unifolia) — has a series of insignificant 

 greenish-purple blossoms which look as much like 

 mosquitoes or flies as anything else, and can be de- 

 tected only with the greatest difficulty. Yet I am 

 planning to take a journey of several hundred miles 

 this very summer on the off-chance of seeing one 

 of these flowers. Nearly as rare is the strange ram's- 

 head lady 's-slipper (Cypripedium arietinum), the 

 rarest of all the cypripedia and belonging to the same 

 family as the glorious moccasin flower and queen 

 flower. The lip of the ram 's-head consists of a strange 

 greenish pouch with purple streaks, shaped like the 

 head of a ram. 



There are scores of other odd, often lovely, and usu- 

 ally rare, members of the great orchis family, which 



