NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 
gaping, the upper petals and sepals arching over the waved 
lower petal. The scape is smooth and fleshy, terminating in 
a loosely-flowered and many-bracted spike; the bracts are 
. dark-green, pointed, and leaf-like; the root a bundle of 
round white fibres; the leaves, two in number, are large, 
blunt, oblong, shining, smooth, and oily, from three to five 
inches long, one larger and more pointed than the other. 
The flowering time of the species is May and June. The 
exquisite cellular tissues of many of our flowers of this 
order delight the eye and give an appearance of great 
delicacy and grace to the blossoms. In this charming 
species the contrast between the lilac purple color of the 
arching petals and sepals and the almost pellucid lower lip, 
or somewhat broadly-lobed under petal, is very charming. 
The large shining leaves lie close to the ground when the 
plant is in flower. Transplanted to gardens the Showy 
Orchis rarely survives the second season of removal from 
the forest shade. It will not grow freely exposed to cold 
wind or glaring sunlight. It loves moist heat; the con- 
servatory would probably suit it, and it would be worth a 
trial there, or in the grove or wilderness, or at the root of 
a large tree near water. 
WILD GARLIC—WILD LEEK—Allium tricoccum (Ait.). 
As soon as the warm rays of early spring sunbeams have 
melted the snow in the woods we see the bright closely- 
folded and pointed leaves of the Wild Garlic, or Wild 
Leek, as it is commonly called, piercing through the carpet 
of dead leaves that thickly covers over the rich black 
mould, the refuse of many years of former decayed foliage. 
The cattle, that have been for many months deprived of 
green food, eagerly avail themselves of the first appearance 
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