White and Greenish 



spike, chooses dry fields, hillsides, opefi woods, and sandy places 

 — queer habitats for a member of its moisture-loving tribe. Its 

 leaves have usually fallen by flowering time. The cluster of 

 tuberous, spindle-shaped roots are an aid to indentification. 



Lesser Rattlesnake Plantain 



(Peramtum repens) Orchid family 

 {Goodyera repens of Gray) 



Flowers — Small, greenish white, the lip pocket-shaped, borne on 

 one side of a bracted spike 5 to 10 in. high, from a fleshy, 

 thick, fibrous root. Leaves : From the base, tufted, or ascend- 

 ing the stem on one side for a few inches, >^ in. to over i in. 

 long, ovate, the silvery-white veins forming a network, or 

 leaf blotched with white. 



Preferred Habitat — Woods, especially under evergreens. 



Flowering Season — July — August. 



Distribution — Colorado eastward to the Atlantic, from Nova Scotia 

 to Florida. Europe and Asia. 



Tufts of these beautifully marked little leaves carpeting the 

 ground in the shadow of the hemlocks attract the eye, rather than 

 the spires of insignificantly small flowers. Whoever wishes to 

 know how the bumblebee ruptures the sensitive membrane 

 within the tiny blossom with her tongue, and draws out the pol- 

 linia that are mstantly cemented to it after much the same plan 

 employed by the ladies' tresses, must use a good lens in studying 

 the operation. To the structural botanist the rattlesnake plan- 

 tains form an interesting connecting link between orchids of dis- 

 tinct forms. In them we see a tendency to lengthen the pollen- 

 masses into caudicles as the showy orchis, for example, has done. 

 "Goodyera probably shows us the state of organs in a group of 

 orchids now mostly extinct," says Darwin; "but the parents of 

 many living descendants." 



It has been said that the Indians use this plant to cure bites of 

 the rattlesnake ; that they will handle the deadly creature without 

 fear if some of these leaves are near at hand — in fact, a good deal 

 is said about Indians by pale-faces that makes even the stolid red 

 man smile when confronted with the white man's tales about 

 him. An intelligent Indian student declares that none of his race 

 will handle a rattlesnake unless its fangs have been removed ; that 

 this plant takes its name from the resemblance of its netted-veined 

 leaves to the belly of a serpent, and not to their curative powers; 

 and, finally, that the Southern tribes, especially, so reverence the 

 rattlesnake that, far from trying to cure its bite, they count them- 

 selves blessed to be bitten to death by one. Indeed, the rattle, a 



i6a 



