THE ORCHIDS OF NEIV ENGIAND. 79 
Orchis, H. obtusata, contented with a few inches in stature 
and two quiet colors, green and white. ‘The flowers are 
rather large for the size of the plant; the anther-cells are 
curved like a bow and widely separated.” Sir William Hooker 
somewhere gives a plate of this Habenaria, and in an enlarged 
drawing of the lip shows two oval spots at the base—these 
serving, probably, to attract insects by secreting nectar. You 
come across this species almost anywhere in the Green Moun- 
tains (particularly on Mansfield, Camel’s Hump and Killington 
Peak) from the last of June, on through July; in the sub- 
Alpine region of the White Mountains in August; and early 
in the same month at Mt. Desert. Gray follows this Habe- 
naria north of Lake Superior, and the Geological Exploration 
of the 4oth Parallel made known its existence in Colorado. 
There is a sandy tract of country lying to the north-east of 
Burlington, where patches of original forest alternate with 
second-growth timber, and roads go zigzagging as if trying to 
find their way out—a fascinating exploring ground if one is 
not vexed by the dust and the depth to which his wheels sink, 
because apparently so unpromising. I was not favorably dis- 
posed toward it, when introduced, one day toward the middle 
of July, for I was returning from Mt. Mansfield, and the 
impressions produced by the mighty scenery left behind; the 
gorges, the leafy silences, the contest of mist and wind on the 
summit, still had me in their hold, but as we turned from the 
highway into a narrow track and wound. under low-hanging 
boughs of pine and oak, the despised region began to rejoice 
and blossom at every step. In the grassy openings where 
feasts of late strawberries tempted us to loiter, stood row after 
row of Turk’s-cap lilies, their brilliancy somewhat softened by 
the bindweeds that thrust up their cool white cups among the 
ferns already dappled with brown and gold. At last we parted 
the branches and came out on the shore of a little pond, so 
lonely and so black that it would have depressed us had it not 
