ORCHIDS 



149 



spike, and finds the portal open wide. Opposite 

 liiin, witliin, stands the stigma, ready to receive and 

 hold any pollen that comes that way. 



Thus there is a shifting of pollen from flower 

 to flower, and thus it is that the modest little plants 

 make their many seeds, and form large colonies, 

 matting the cool pine forest far and wide. 



There are three species of the Epipactis in our 

 region — the repens, puhescens, and decipiens, hut 

 their modes of procuring cross-fertilisation are 

 identical. 



Lady's Tresses — Gyrostachys 

 September 



The last orchids of the year are the 

 lady's tresses, whose slender and grace- 

 ful spires adorn many a field and road- 

 side. We have seven species growing 

 in our northern and eastern region, all 

 of whom have one mode of procuring 

 cross-fertilisation, a mode closely resem- 

 bling that of the rattlesnake plantain. 

 We find the same mechanism of the 

 column, bent downward in the newly 

 opened flowers, rising as time goes on, 

 to expose its stigmatic surface to the 

 touch of the pollen. 



LADIES' 

 TRESSES 



