GYROSTACHYS 95 



point of attachment there are no protuberances, but some- 

 times little thickened places (Figs. 2, 3). 



This is the earliest of the Lady's-Tresses to bloom. 

 It begins in June and lasts till August, but loves cold, wet 

 woods and damp meadows in New York and New England. 

 Its range is from New Brunswick to Minnesota, and south 

 to Virginia, but seldom, if ever, beyond the Mississippi. 



3. NODDING LADy's-TRESSES 



Gyrostachys cernua (L.) Kuntze. (Plate XXXIX.) 



This is the most beautiful of our Lady's-Tresses and the 

 latest to bloom. 



The stalk varies greatly in size, from six inches to two 

 feet. It is downy in its upper part, and is wrapped by 

 several pointed bracts. The long, narrow leaves all spring 

 from the base or near it, and are sometimes more than a foot 

 long, though they may not exceed three inches in breadth. 

 They are not so grass-like as in the Grassy Lady's-Tresses, 

 being distinctly wider at the end and narrowed into a sort of 

 leaf stalk above the middle, but as the leaves are apt to 

 wither away when the flower blooms, it has the appearance 

 of rising almost bare stalked from the ground. 



The spike is four or five inches long and about half 

 an inch in diameter. The tiny yellowish-white flowers, not 

 half an inch long, nod on their short-flowered stalks and 

 climb around the stalk, each third one peering around and 

 down at the one below it. The sepals at the side are free 



