153 



never seen even one orchid before, was introduced to three most 

 attractive species, Pogonia ophioglossoides, Calopogon pidchellus 

 and Habenaria ciUaris. There were other interesting plants in 

 that bog, but no Vaccinium nor Andromeda nor Cassandra, nor 

 all the rest, made any impression, in comparison with the orchids, 

 all of which were in great profusion and in perfect l)loom. From 

 that day the writer dates the incomparable joys of orchid-study 

 in field and forest and bog, and in books and conversations, 

 during more than fifty years. There were many botanizing 

 excursions near New Haven during the next few years, but no 

 memories are particularly vivid, except those of collecting 

 Arethiisa in abundance, including one plant that bore two scapes 

 and three flowers, in a bog that is now dry land, and of finding 

 an occasional plant of Isotria verticillata in fruit, never one in 

 flower, in the woods adjacent to Edgewood, the home of Ik 

 Marvel. 



On the upper end of Manhattan Island there were native 

 orchids in those days. In a bank by the side of a private road 

 leading up through the woods from the New York Central Sta- 

 tion at Inwood, was a small colony of Tipidaria. Between that 

 spot and "the Kingsbridge Road," were found occasionally 

 Liparis liliifolia, Goodyera puhescens, Corallorrhiza odontorhiza, 

 Spiranthes gracilis and Spiranthes cerniia; authentic specimens 

 of which are preserved in the local herbarium of the New York 

 Botanical Garden. The writing of these names reminds one of 

 the changes in nomenclature, as well as in the region, since those 

 earlier days; but these binomials are adequate for identification. 



Most of the writer's orchid-hunting in recent years has been 

 done in the town of Fairlee, Orange County, Vermont, where 

 within about two square miles thirty-three species have been 

 found, nearly one half of those listed in Gray's Manual. This 

 surprising result began just ten years ago with the finding of 

 Cypripediiim arietinum in a most unexpected place. There 

 hadn't been any search for it; the writer was scrambling up a 

 steep mountain, and there, on a dry slope, appeared this rara avis. 

 The books report it as growing in bogs. It does; but it thrives 

 on this stony declivity, where the slope is from 45° to 60°, where 



