BLUE AND PURPLE GROUP 



chusetts, New York, and westward to Minnesota. It is a 

 fortunate person who finds the ram's head lady's slipper. 

 It might be easily recognized, for it does not take a lively 

 imagination to see, in the lip, the mouth and head of a ram, 

 while the long, curving sepals make the horns. 



Large Purple Fringed Orchis 



Habenaria fimbriata. — Family, Orchis. Color, lilac or deep pur- 

 ple, rarely white. Upper sepals and petals toothed, united. The 

 Up 3 -parted, spreading like an open" fan, much fringed, prolonged 

 backward into a thread-like spur. Flowers, in a dense raceme 

 terminating a stem i to 4 feet high. Raceme, 3 to 15 inches long. 

 Stem, leafy. Leaves, lance-shape to oval, their bases sheathing 

 the stem, the lower 4 to 10 inches long, upper smaller, acute. 

 June to August. 



Rich woods and meadows, often near a running brook. 

 No richer-hued or more queenly flower rewards the seeker 

 after our native orchids. In the old legends Orchis, the son 

 of a rural deity, by his rustic manners offended the servants 

 of Bacchus, who killed him. His parents prayed that a 

 flower might be created to commemorate the name of their 

 hapless son, and the gods, in answer, gave them the orchis. 



Early Coral Root 



Corattorhiza trifida, — Family, Orchis. Color, dull brownish 

 purple. Sepals and petals small. Lip, white, smaller than the 

 petals, 3-lobed. Spur, a small protuberance. Flowers, 3 to 12, in 

 a raceme 1 to 3 inches long. Scape, 4 to 12 inches high, with 

 no leaves, but a few sheathing scales near the base. The root 

 branched and broken like a coral branch, gives the plant its 

 name. May to July. 



Parasitic on roots of other plants, or saprophytic, finding 

 its nourishment on dead or decaying matter. In cool, 

 shaded woods from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio 

 northward. In mountains of Georgia. 



C odontorhtza. — Color, purplish. Sepals and petals, long and 

 narrow, marked with purple lines. Lip, white, spotted with deep 

 pink, broadly ovate, or obovate, not notched. Scape, purplish, 

 6 to 15 inches high. Flowers, in a raceme. Rootstock, toothed, 

 coral-like. August and September. 



In woods, Massachusetts to Michigan, south to Florida and 

 Mississippi. 



20 $o 3 



