POGONIA 71 



There is no thoroughfare in this orchid, and no space to turn 

 around, so that the insect is obHged to back out, and in so 

 doing he catches his head on a Httle rim of the anther hd that 

 grows there on purpose, and immediately the disc that 

 covered the pollen springs back like the lid of a watch, leaving 

 the pollen masses exposed in a little grooved opening, in such 

 a way that the insect must receive them on his head. It 

 seems quite possible that the heavy beard of bristles on the 

 lip adds just the touch of difficulty in the path of his retreat 

 to cause him to tiptoe awkwardly backward and insure his 

 stumbling against the rim on the lid in just the right way to 

 open it. The moment the insect has withdrawn, the lid 

 closes with a snap and shuts in for another insect any of 

 the pollen mass that was not carried away. That which 

 adheres to the first visitor's head is carried straight against 

 the flat, round stigma of the next flower it visits. 



The Rose Pogonia grows in meadows and swamps 

 through Canada, all the way from Newfoundland and 

 Ontario, across the continent and as far south as Florida on 

 the coast and Kansas in the Midland States. It also grows 

 in Japan, but as far as we know in no other part of the 

 world. It is overwhelming to think that before the Pacific 

 Ocean knew its present bounds, in that dim age when no sea 

 separated the coast of Japan from our shores — that then 

 this rose-pink blossom grew, perhaps profusely, as became 

 the presiding flower families which were then among the 

 monocotyledons, as profusely as the daisies and golden-rod 

 of to-day; and that since Japan has become an island 



