MIDLAND NATURALIST 63 
meda Polifolia, Ki almia glauca and Pyrus arbutifolia; then in patches 
of the mure open sphagnum among these bushes grew such fascinat- 
ing beauties as Pogonia ophioglossoides, Calopogon pulchellus and 
Arethusa bulbosa; while around and among them all were cranberry 
vines, and the little mats of several kinds of sundew. Not exactly 
among these sphagnophiles, but rather just under the shade of such 
larches as occupied ground a trifle more elevated, and where from 
the leaves of them and the viburnums and mountain ash bushes a 
slight depth of leaf mould had accumulated, one always found this 
fine cypripedium, also here and there along with it Linnaea borealis. 
Now, as I have already said, the associations of this plant there 
in Wisconsin were in very marked contrast to those chosen by it in 
that part of New England where I had known it. And what may 
add still more to the interest of it in its tamarack marsh locality of 
the West, is this, that here, on wooded slopes like those where at 
the East one would have looked for this species, one met always 
with another cypripedium and not this. The southern boundary of 
the one Wisconsin marsh where I found Cypripedium acaule most 
plentiful was just such a rich shady hillside, sloping northward, of 
course; and this was the best station I knew of for Cypripedium 
spectabile; but no other grew there 
From the time of my obsirvlug Cj pribodikn acaule in the dtc 
Swamps of Wisconsin more than thirty consecutive years elapsed 
without my having once seen a living specimen of this fine orchid; 
years of sojourn and of travel in regions far beyond the range of it. 
I then came suddenly one spring day upon a large colony of it in a 
piece of low damp woods near the banks of the lower Potomac 
River in Maryland. I was fairly enthralled by the vision of so 
great a number of these beautiful things all in one place. I had 
been used to think it a piece of very good botanical fortune if ever 
I found three or four of them within a few feet of each other; and 
here there were some dozens of them to be seen at one view, and a 
considerable tract of this forest shade was in a manner covered with 
them; not, of course, that the plants were at all crowded together; 
they were scattered about, as usual, but the area occupied with them 
measured several rods, and there was such an almost total absence 
of larger undergrowth of shrubs and herbaceous plants as rendered 
many of the cypripediums visible at one glance. 
During long years of ardent botanical field study I have 
been so well used to contemplate ecological conditions, that here, 
e 
