136 OUR NATIVE ORCHIDS 



tact with the elements of the soil; and the leafy rooted 

 orchids may be the degenerate children of Namon, thrust out 

 from the aristocracy. 



Be it as it may, the Coralroots afford a chance for 

 study in the new field of chemical reaction, and will some 

 day forge a link in the vast chain of knowledge of the 

 relationship between the organic and inorganic world. 



There is, however, something a little uncanny about the 

 Coralroot flowers. Walking through a thick, rich wood 

 over beds of brown leaves, one is suddenly aware of slender 

 purple streaks piercing the dead leaves. On stooping to 

 examine them one sees that they shade through brown and 

 purple to a light, clear green and that they are furnished with 

 a raceme with tiny flowers standing off" stifily and sparsely at 

 an oblique angle or hung with little drooping green cucum- 

 bers for seed capsules. One sees another, and another, till 

 suddenly, as if one were made aware of the presence of 

 spirits, one sees that the hillside is so thick with them that if 

 their flowers were, for instance, like those of the Purple- 

 fringed Orchid, the woods would be one sheet of violet flame. 



Close to the stem is pressed a purple scale or two, the 

 rudiments of the leaves that bear no green and lend no 

 service to the plant nourishment. 



AH five familiar Eastern plants look much alike, save 

 for some detail of size or form of lip. It requires a stretch 

 of the imagination to consider the small brownish-purple 

 wisps of flowers upon their bare stalk, beautiful. The 

 pendent greenish capsules, like fairy cucumbers, that ripen 



