PREFACE xiii 



friends. Then he settled down patiently to watch by night 

 these curiously constructed flowers that are so marvellously 

 adapted to some particular insect visitor. His written 

 observations were only begun at the time of his death, but 

 his data for observation were ready to be given to his readers. 



On opening his orchid portfolio, there appear finished 

 studies of the queenly orchids of our Northern woods, 

 delicate pen-and-ink pictures full of the artist's perception 

 of grace in the grotesque, of the inconspicuous low green 

 orchids, and pencil notes of the greatest accuracy, revealing 

 the mechanism by which the pollen masses were clapped 

 on the head of the eager insect that pushed through the 

 alluring petals to get his honey. It was his desire that 

 others should have the dear delight of walking the fields 

 with seeing eyes, and the woods with understanding; and to 

 that end he had completed the drawings of nearly all our sixty 

 or more native orchids with a hint at the meaning of each, 

 when his work was stopped with the text still unwritten. 



But the pictures are the orchids themselves, and with 

 his open portfolio, the flower lover may learn to know them, 

 not merely in the snobbish way in which the social aspirant 

 delights to be able to bow to some one whom he knows 

 merely by name, but with that intimate personal love that 

 lasts through seasons' changes, from the spring awakening 

 out of the brown earth to the quick or tardy bursting forth 

 of the blossom, be it gorgeous and tall, or low and queer and 

 ugly, through its hours of unfolding maturity, when it woos 

 with fringe and flame and nectar its insect visitor, until, its 



