White and Greenish 



with them. This plastering over of insects' eyes by the orchids 

 might be serious business, indeed, were not the Icpidoptera gifted 

 with numerous pairs. The fragrance of many orchids, however, 

 would be a sufficient guide even to a blind insect. With the 

 pollen-masses sticking to his forehead, the moth enters another 

 flower and necessarily rubs off some grains from the pollen- 

 masses, that have changed their attitude during his flight that they 

 may be in the precise position to fertilize the viscid stigma. In 

 almost the same way the similar yellow-fringed orchis (H. ciliaris) 

 and the great green orchids compel insects to work for them. 



A larger-flowered species, the Prairie White-fringed Orchis 

 (H. It 'cophea), found in bloom in June and July, on moist, open 

 ground from western New York to Minnesota and Arkansas, 

 differs from the preceding chiefly in having larger and greenish- 

 white flowers, the lip cleft into wedge-shaped segments deeply 

 fringed. The hawk-moth removes on its tongue one, but not oftert 

 both, of the pollinia attached to disks on either side of the entrance 

 to the spur. 



Nodding Ladies' Tresses or Traces 



(Gyrostachys cernud) Orchid family 

 (Spiranthes cernua of Gray) 



Flowers Small, white or yellowish, without a spur, fragrant, nod- 

 ding or spreading in 3 rows on a cylindrical, slightly twisted 

 spike 4 or 5 in. long. Side sepals free, the upper ones arching, 

 and united with petals; the oblong, spreading lip crinkle-edged, 

 and bearing minute, hairy callosities at base. Stem: 6 in. to 

 2 ft. tall, with several pointect wrapping bracts. Leaves: 

 From or near the base, linear, almost grass-like. (Illustration 

 facing p. 1 76.) 



Preferred Habitat Low meadows, ditches, and swamps. 



.Flowering Season July October. 



'Distribution Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward 

 to the Mississippi. 



^This last orchid of the season, and perhaps the commonest of 

 its interesting tribe in the eastern United States, at least, bears 

 flowers that, however insignificant in size, are marvellous pieces 

 of mechanism, to which such men as Charles Darwin and Asa 

 Gray have devoted hours of study and, these two men particu- 

 larly, much correspondence. 



Just as a woodpecker begins at the bottom of a tree and taps 

 his way upward, so a bee begins at the lower and older flowers 

 on a spike and works up to the younger ones ; a fact on which 

 this little orchid, like many another plant that arranges its blos- 

 soms in long racemes, depends. Let us not note for the present 



1 66 



