Magenta to Pink 



can squeeze through the passage without paying toll. To those of 

 the Andrena and Halictus tribe the flower is evidently best adapted. 

 Sometimes the largest bumblebees, either unable or unwilling to 

 get out by the legitimate route, bite their way to liberty. Muti- 

 lated sacs are not uncommon. But when unable to get out by 

 fair means, and too bewildered to escape by foul, the large bee 

 must sometimes perish miserably in his gorgeous prison. 



Showy, Gay, or Spring Orchis 



(Orchis spectabilis) Orchid family 



Flowers Purplish pink, of deeper and lighter shade, the lower lip 

 white, and thick of texture; from 3 to 6 on a spike; fragrant. 

 Sepals pointed, united, arching above the converging petals, 

 and resembling a hood; lip large, spreading, prolonged into 

 a spur, which is largest at the tip and as long as the twisted 

 footstem. Stem: 4 to 12 in. high, thick, fleshy, 5-sided. Leaves: 

 2, large, broadly ovate, glossy green, silvery on underside, ris- 

 ing from a few scales from root. Fruit: A sharply angled 

 capsule, i in. long. (Illustration facing p. 61.) 



Preferred Habitat Rich, moist woods, especially under hem- 

 locks. 



Flowering Season April June. 



Distribution From New Brunswick and Ontario southward to 

 our Southern States, westward to Nebraska. 



Of the six floral leaves which every orchid, terrestrial or 

 aerial, possesses, one is always peculiar in form, pouch-shaped, 

 or a cornucopia filled with nectar, or a flaunted, fringed banner, 

 or a broad platform for the insect visitors to alight on. Some 

 orchids look to imaginative eyes as if they were masquerading in 

 the disguise of bees, moths, frogs, birds, butterflies. A number 

 of these queer freaks are to be found in Europe. Spring traps, 

 adhesive plasters, and hair-triggers attached to explosive shells of 

 pollen are among the many devices by which orchids compel insects 

 to cross-fertilize them, these flowers as a family showing the most 

 marvellous mechanism adapted to their requirements from insects 

 in the whole floral kingdom. No other blossoms can so well afford 

 to wear magenta, the ugliest shade nature produces, the "lovely 

 rosy purple " of Dutch bulb growers, a color that has an unplea- 

 sant effect on not a few American stomachs outside of Hoboken. 



But an orchid, from the amazing cleverness of its operations, 

 is attractive under any circumstances to whomever understands 

 it. This earliest member of the family to appear charms the fe- 

 male bumblebee, to whose anatomy it is especially adapted. The 

 males, whose faces are hairy where the females' are bare, and there- 



83 



