156 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 
Little spikes of greenish-white flowers they are, grow- 
ing out of what looks like a twisted or braided stem. 
Of them all the most interesting to me is the grass- 
leaved lady’s tresses (Gyrostachys precox), where the 
flowers grow round and round the stem in a perfect 
spiral. 
As I went on with my hunting, I learned that not 
all the members of the orchis family are beautiful. 
There is the coral root, with tiny dull brownish- 
purple flowers, which one finds growing in dry woods, 
often near colonies of the Indian pipe. The green 
and the ragged-fringed orchids are other disap- 
pointing members. Yet, to a confirmed collector, 
even these poor relations of the family are full of 
interest. In fact, the second rarest orchid of our 
American list—the celebrated crane-fly orchid 
(Tipularia unifolia)—has a series of insignificant 
greenish-purple blossoms which look as much like 
mosquitoes or flies as anything else, and can be de- 
tected only with the greatest difficulty. Yet I am 
planning to take a journey of several hundred miles 
this very summer on the off-chance of seeing one 
of these flowers. Nearly as rare is the strange ram’s- 
head lady’s-slipper (Cypripedium arietinum), the 
rarest of all the cypripedia and belonging to the same 
family as the glorious moccasin flower and queen 
flower. The lip of the ram’s-head consists of a strange 
greenish pouch with purple streaks, shaped like the 
head of a ram. 
There are scores of other odd, often lovely, and usu- 
ally rare, members of the great orchis family, which 
