THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND II7 
gonia has a tuberous root; the delicate blossoms, one or more 
in number (3—7 according to Chapman), vary in color from pale 
rose to pure white and have a slight odor. The lip is prettily 
cleft or lobed, and has in place of a crest, three tiny green lines, 
which I am inclined to suspect secrete nectar. ‘A comparison 
between the different Pogonias,” says Meehan, “ establishes 
confidence in the doctrine that all the parts of a flower are but 
modifications of simple leaves—in P. pendula, the vegetative 
force seems feeble, and spends itself in often-repeated attempts; 
hence small leaves and insignificant flowers are scattered all 
along the stem, but in P. wertictllata the force exercised is 
evidently greater, not only in amount but also in degree, and its 
action is more concentrated. The stem, therefore, instead of 
slowly elongating and sending out a leaf and a flower here and 
there, rapidly draws in its spiral coils, thus producing only a 
whorl of leaves, and annihilating all tendency to flower in the 
axils, after which it makes another growth and then another 
sudden arrest and coil, resulting in a large single flower. In P. 
ophwoglossordes the acting force was intermediate in intensity. 
Having coiled up the primordial leaves to form the flower stem, 
the force was not powerful enough to arrest the formation of 
the leaves suddenly, and it therefore still left them somewhat 
scattered. The lowermost leaf is little more than a sheathing 
scale. The next shows by the groove down the stem oppo- 
site how very near it came to diverging still more than it actu- 
ally does from the interior leaves out of which the stem is 
formed; and the upper one by its greatly reduced size, reveals 
the fact that the force employed in arresting the elongating 
growth and in working up all the separate parts into a flower 
is now in active operation.” * 
Spiranthes simplex, the Simple Spiranthes, “ Aug.—Sept.,” a 
low, narrow-spiked species, graces the dry and sandy pastures 
of the three southern States, especially along the coast ; scarce, 
* 
* Natize Flowers and Feris, I. Series, Vol. 1, 
