20 OUR NATIVE ORCHIDS 



The two North American species of Orchis may be 

 distinguished from each other as follows: 



Plant two leaved at base, flowers 



large, purple and white. I. Showy Orchis. 



Plant one leaved at base, flowers 



smaller, petals rose colour, lip 



white spotted with purple. ' 2. Small, Round-leaved Orchis. 



I. SHOWY ORCHIS 



Orchis spectahilis, L. (Plate X.) 



Among the earliest flowers of the spring, after the hepati- 

 cas and blood-roots show their frail blossoms, one may begin 

 to look for this true harbinger of warm weather. Any- 

 where in rich woods from New Brunswick to Ontario and 

 Minnesota, and as far south as Georgia, one may find it, if 

 one is fortunate, pushing its two thick green leaves up through 

 the moist matted carpet of the woods and sending up a 

 scape of beautiful pinkish purple and white flowers. 



The Showy Orchis does not grow very tall. Its fleshy 

 five-angled stem is not more than twelve inches, and rarely 

 attains even that height. The leaves are, however, com- 

 paratively large, sometimes eight inches long and four wide. 

 They are clammy to the touch and spread widely when the 

 flowering scape appears. 



There are seldom more than three to six blossoms, 

 but each is about an inch long. Leafy bracts sheathe the 

 ovaries, and the white sepals unite in an arch bending over 

 the anther cells in such away as to give the name "Preacher in 



