1891.] A Few Native Orchids. 249 
To the sensitive student of plant life every order or family 
possesses characteristics and peculiarities of its own. I do not 
here refer to those obvious differences and resemblances upon 
which classification is based, but something much more intangi- 
ble, which I do not know how to characterize, otherwise than as 
difference of temperament. In this sense the orchids are a con- 
servative, stay-at-home class, possessed not at all by the spirit of 
adventure. Other plants may roam far or near in the track of 
man or beast, but they are impatient of new conditions, and 
stay firmly rooted in their original haunts. They are a law unto 
themselves, and usually a law past finding out. Why, for 
instance, did the quaint Ladies’ Tresses (Spiranthes cernua) bloom 
year after year on the edge of the old brick-kiln, and nowhere 
else by bog or lakeside in the whole vicinity? Indeed, so tena- 
ciously did it cling to this spot, that when years of disuse had 
dried the kiln I have found the short stems, with their spiral rows 
of tiny white flowers, among the meadow-grasses, which had 
usurped the place of the rushes and sedges. And why, of all the 
lakes scattered throughout the neighborhood, is Clear Lake the 
only one where the Fringed Purple Orchis (Platanthera bigelovit) 
deigns to rear her splendid spike of rose-red flowers? And 
this, too, in open defiance of the dictum of the botanist,—‘ com- 
mon in wet meadows”! Her sister, the lovely Yellow Fringed 
Orchis (P. ciliaris) does not thus overstep the bounds marked 
out for her. “Verf rare” she is indeed! Only twice have I 
found the slender stem, crowned by two or three delicate orange 
flowers, looking like nothing so much as some marvelous insect 
poised for flight. Once it was the sufficient reward of a long 
tramp under an August sun to the low-lying meadows which 
border the Battle Creek ; and again, years after, it was the sole 
trophy of a trip to Hawkin’s swamp for huckleberries. 
This family trait is also well illustrated by the White Prairie 
Orchis (P. /eucophea). Climax is one of the prairies of small 
extent scattered throughout Southern Michigan ; but small as it 
is, this characteristic prairie flower has found it out, and blooms 
there in profusion. Yet a short distance away, under seemingly 
similar conditions, except the prairie soil, you may search for it 
