HABENARIA 49 



Louisiana, these blossoming rods of gold rise fringed and 

 feathered among the tall grasses of July and August. 



The Yellow Fringed Orchis is one of the tallest and 

 stoutest of all our orchids. It often grows two and a half 

 to three feet tall, and has long narrow leaves with sharp 

 points that may measure twelve inches, but that generally 

 are four to eight inches long. These are large at the base, 

 but after the first two or three dwindle abruptly into bract- 

 like leaves, that give the stem the appearance of being 

 naked for a foot or more of its length. At the summit 

 bursts forth this mass of golden fringe, in a spike of blossoms 

 three to six inches long and often three inches thick. 



The individual flowers are orange or yellow, large and 

 shovv^y. The sepals are rounded and broader than they are 

 long, and spread like ears at either side of the lip, while the 

 third one is hooded over the column. The two upper petals 

 are very narrow and generally toothed, and are almost 

 hidden under the hooded sepal. The long lip, with its 

 deep fringe, must offer a dazzling threshold to passing 

 insects, who find awaiting them the opening to the long, 

 slender spur that contains the nectar. 



As an insect alights at the bottom of the stalk to visit the 

 first blossom, his weight bends the long lip down to such a 

 degree that he would slip off were it not for the dense fringe 

 to which he seems to cling as he clambers up, shaking the 

 whole spike as he goes. But arriving at the opening of the 

 spur that holds the nectar in the tip of its long, slender tube, 

 he unfurls his tongue and sucks. The meanwhile his head 



