GYROSTACHYS 99 



Nodding Lady's-Tresses so closely that a novice is apt to 

 mistake one for the other. It grows in grassy places from 

 southern New York to Florida and Louisiana. 



6. LITTLE LADY's-TRESSES 

 Gyrostachys simplex (A. Gray) Kuntze. (Plate XLL, Fig. 2.) 



A SMALL, fragile, inconspicuous little orchid is this 

 frail plant. It is as small as the other low species, being 

 from five to nine inches high, but it could never be mistaken 

 for it; its root is a single tuber and its stem is not leafy. 

 It has only a few scattered bracts, and the short, ovate or 

 oblong leaves that spring from the base are withered when 

 the flower blossoms, in August and September, so that the 

 appearance is of a slender, leafless stalk bearing a one- 

 inch slightly twisted spike of the most microscopic white 

 blossoms. Nevertheless the little tip, when magnified, 

 shows all the delicate crisping and veining of the large 

 species, and the characteristic horns at its base are quite 

 prominent. 



Its habitat is characteristic, as it abandons the low, 

 damp ground, in which the other Lady's-Tresses grow more 

 luxuriantly, and chooses dry and sandy places from Massa- 

 chusetts to Maryland, where it grows sparsely. It grows in 

 Rhode Island and is one of the treasures of Nantucket, that 

 wild sea-girt garden that retains some living memories of 

 the days when it was a mountain top on the coast of North 

 America. It is not beautiful except to those who see with 



