500 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. [Vou. XXXII. 
1 species, Hypoxis hirsuta, star grass, being found in New 
England. The flowers are often white, sweet-scented, and 
attractive to night-flying Lepidoptera. Of the 6 northern 
species, 3 are yellow and 3 white. The coloration of the ex- 
otic species is unsurpassed in beauty and magnificence, orange, 
white, red, and crimson predominating. 
In the Iridacez, on the contrary, blue, violet, purple, and 
yellow are the more common colors, often variegated and gaud- 
ily spotted. The flowers of Iris are adapted to the largey bees, 
though the bright yellow Z. pseudacorus, naturalized from 
Europe, has been seen both there and in New England to be 
frequently visited by a syrphid fly of the genus Rhingia. On 
I. versicolor I have taken four different bees ; the. honey-bee 
‘often passes in and out sideways between the perianth segment 
and the petaloid style without effecting fertilization, and Matic- 
tus similis, also common, I have observed breaking open imma- 
ture anthers for the pollen. Yellow markings, yellow flowers, 
and reversion to yellow are of frequent occurrence, especially 
in Iris and the familiar Gladiolus and Crocus, and point to this 
color as belonging to an earlier stage of this family. 
At the head of the monocotyledons stand the magnificent 
and extensive family of the Orchidacez, which, according to 
Engler, has no possible connecting link with the liliaceous fami- 
lies. The flowers are zygomorphous in a very high degree and 
possess marvelous adaptations for fertilization by insects, which 
have been very fully described, but can only be properly under- 
stood by the examination of living specimens. .Of the 61 
northern species, 10 are yellow, 18 white, 8 red, 14 purple, and 
11 green. The number of white and green flowers appear sur- 
prisingly large until it is observed how sparingly our indigenous 
species are visited by insects. There are no blue flowers, and 
this is an unusual color among orchids, though found in the 
pale blue Vgnda cerule of India. There is much variegation, 
and reversion to white of the pink-purple forms is common as 
in Habenaria grandiflora and Pogonia ophioglossoides. Many 
of the large pink-purple or rose-colored flowers are attractive 
to bumblebees. Orchis spectabilis blooms in early springtime 
and is visited only by female forms of Bombus, which are then 
