158 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



purple-pink butterfly which had alighted on a long 

 swaying stern. It was no other than the beautiful 

 grass-pink (Limodorum tuberosum), which blooms in 

 July, while the pogonia comes out in late June. 

 The grass-pink has from two to six blossoms on each 

 stem, and the yellow lip is above instead of below the 

 flower, as in the case of most orchids. Years later I 

 was to find this orchid growing by scores in the pine- 

 barrens. 



Last, but by no means least, is the great genus 

 Habenaria — the exquisite fringed orchids. Purple, 

 white, gold, green — they wear all these colors. He 

 who has never seen either the large or the small 

 purple fringed orchid growing in the June or July 

 meadows, or the flaming yellow fringed orchid all 

 orange and gold in the i^ugust meadows, has still 

 much for which to live. 



It was with an orchid of this genus that I had my 

 most recent adventure. I had traveled with the Bot- 

 anist into the heart of the pine-barrens. There may 

 be places where more flowers and rarer flowers and 

 sweeter flowers grow than in these barrens, but if so, 

 the Botanist and I have never found the spot. From 

 the early spring, when the water freezes in the hollow 

 leaves of the pitcher-plant, to the last gleam of the 

 orange polygala in the late fall, we are always finding 

 something rare and new. On that August day we 

 followed a dim path that led through thickets of 

 scrub-oak and sweet pepper-bush. By its side grew 

 clumps of deer-grass, with its purple-pink petals and 

 masses of orange-colored stamens. Sometimes the 



