IX 

 PERAMIUM 



RATTLESNAKE PLANTAIN. (Plate XLIV.) 



The Rattlesnake Plantains are one of the features of 

 almost every patch of woods, especially pine woods, from 

 the Atlantic to the Pacific. One expects, as the sun glints 

 between branches on the soft brown carpet patterned with 

 green, to see their neat veiny-leaved rosettes of blue-green 

 velvet pressed against the background. But whoever ex- 

 pects to find it in bloom must search diligently. Baldwin 

 cites the experience of a botanist who had travelled widely 

 in Vermont, but who had not found a flowering specimen for 

 two years. Quoting his own observation, he says: "I 

 happened to be in a little grove of hemlocks two years ago, 

 in September, and noticing that these orchids were quite 

 abundant, counted them roughly. Out of 200 plants of the 

 Downy Rattlesnake Plantain, young and old, only twelve 

 had flowered, and twenty plants of the Creeping Rattle- 

 snake Plantain furnished but two spikes. A more careful 

 estimate in the following year resulted in giving 102 flower 

 spikes from 572 plants, young and old, of the Downy 

 species. One patch that lay like a mat on the ground had 

 226 plants in it, and but fifteen spikes." 



Ill 



