ORCHID FAMILY. Orchldacese. 



Epipactis Stem stout, leaves stiff, plain green or 



dedpiens indistinctly marked, often with broad 



White, creamy white ribs, or rarely mottled as in the fore- 

 or greenish going species. The flower-spike thick and 

 one-sided ; the lip of the flower is large at 

 the base and tapers to the point with the edges curved 

 inward. 8-20 inches high. In dry woods, generally 

 among evergreens. Aroostook Co., Me., Que., N. B., 

 and along the Great Lakes from Lake Huron westward. 

 (M. L. Fernald, Rhodora, vol. i, No. 1., p. 7). This is the 

 largest of all the species, 



Epipactis This is the commoner rattlesnake plan- 



pubescens tain of southern New England ; its flower- 



White, creamy spike is thick, blooms upward, and is not 

 one - sided ' The nower-stem is stout, 

 densely woolly, and bears several lance- 

 shaped scales. The flower has a pronounced sac- 

 shaped blunt lip the margin of which is not recurved. 

 Leaves dark blue-olive green, white-veined, the middle 

 vein broad. 6-18 inches high. In dry evergreen woods, 

 southern Me., and central N. H. , south and west to Minn. 

 Arethusa A large single-flowered and delicate 



Arethusa bul- scen t e d orchid, the light magenta-crimson 

 Magenta=crim= P e * a ^ s and sepals of which point upward 

 * son like the fingers of a half-open hand viewed 



May-June in profile. The lip of the flower is recurved 

 and spreading, with the broad apex often fringed, 

 magenta blotched, and crested in three white hairy 

 ridges ; this forms a conspicuously colored landing plat- 

 form for the visiting insect, usually a bumblebee, who, 

 after pressing beneath the column and sipping the nec- 

 tar, backs out brushing against the edge or lid of the an- 

 ther, opening it and emptying the enclosed pollen upon 

 his head, as is also the case with Pogonia ophioglossoides. 

 The column is topped by the lid-like anther instead of 

 the usual rostellum, and the pollen-masses are not pear- 

 like and stemmed, The solitary leaf is linear, and hidden 

 in the sheathed scape; it appears after the flowering 

 season. Rarely a plant produces two flowers ; these vary 

 from 1-2 inches in length. Fruit capsule elliptical, 



78 



