71 



dering available of other plant foods in the soil is closel>' con- 

 nected with the degree of acidity or of alkalinity represented. 

 When the seeds of plants, in the course of their dispersal, reach 

 a given locality, what will happen is largely determined by the 

 chemical conditions. Only when the chemical character of the 

 soil is exactly adapted to the needs of a given species will that 

 species become well established. 



By way of illustration a series of some 50 hand-colored lan- 

 tern slides of wild flowers was shown, many of these slides being 

 the property of the Washington Chapter of the Wild Flower 

 Preserv^ation Society of America. 



The second item of the program was an illustrated talk by 

 Dr. H. M. Denslow under the title "Our Terrestrial Orchids" 

 assigned to him by the program committee. 



Though orchids are almost gone from Greater New York, 

 there are still to be found, within the sixty counties of the Tor- 

 rey Club area, about fifty species, of twenty-two genera; these 

 numbers being respectively about two-sevenths and four-sev- 

 enths of the totals recorded for North America. There is a great 

 variety also, owing to the long reach, from Columbia County, 

 N. Y., to Southern New Jersey, so that we have at one extreme 

 Limnorchis hyperborea and at the other Ophrys australis. Cy- 

 pripedium arietinum comes within about thirty miles of our 

 limit, in New York and in Massachusetts, and Blephari glottis 

 peramoena has been found until recently in New Jersey. 



I^t was suggested that our species may be divided, with 

 reference to their provision for the visits of insects, into the 

 "pouch'' species such as the Cypripediums, Peramiums and 

 Calypso, and the "porch" species, which include the great 

 majority of our species. 



The lact was emphasized that most of our handsomest 

 species are among the earliest; and the various kinds of root- 

 formation were described briefly, to illustrate the hint of some 

 connection between the luxuriant growth or early flowering of 

 some species and their abundant provision for gathering and 

 storing a readily available supply of nutriment for the season's 

 growth. 



About forty slides were shown, including some, furnished by 

 Dr. Wherry, of species and stations near Washington, D. C, 



