124. THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 
The Downy Goodyera, G. pubescens, Barton’s Veined-leaved 
Neottia, with its popular names of Adder’s Violet and Scrofula 
Weed, is our best known and most common species, and its 
blue-green velvety leaves may be seen in hanging-baskets at 
any florist’s. Josselyn, Mew LEugland’s Raritics, 1672, sup- 
poses it to be a Pyrola, and says of the leaves, “the Ground 
whereof is a sap Green embroydered (as it were) with many 
pale yellow Ribs.” Dewey speaks of the “elegant appear- 
ance” presented by this plant, and of its great reputation 
among herb and Indian doctors, though in the only case in 
which he saw it applied, “no results followed.” Pursh says it 
has a wide-spread reputation as an infallible cure for hydro- 
phobia, and the American Herbal, published at Walpole, N. H., 
in 1801, by Sam. Stearns, LL.D. (who gives as a prescription 
for dyspepsia, a mixture of ants’ eggs and buttermilk), men- 
tions the Rattle-snake Plantain as follows: ‘Country people 
use a decoction of the leaves for skin diseases, and Captain 
Carver says the Indians are so convinced of its power as an 
antidote that they allow a snake to drive its fangs into them, 
then chew the leaves and apply them to the wound.” 
The Creeping Goodyera, G. repens, considered by many to 
be a variety of the former, and not, as Darwin and Gray both 
maintain, a distinct species, rarely, if ever, attains to the height 
of afoot. Its leaves are more pointed than those of the other, 
more openly veined, and yellow-green in color; the flowers are 
not crowded on the spike, but fewer aud arranged in a row; 
but intermediate forms are not uncommon. The difference in 
the color of the leaves is sufficiently marked to be noticed by 
one passing quickly through the place where both species grow. 
I once found a very beautiful group of G. pubescens: the leaves 
were a dull blue with scarcely a tinge of green, and instead 
of the usual net-work of veins, there was a silvery frost-work 
over them. Goodyera Mensiestt,a species added to our New 
England Flora within a few years by the intrepid explorations 
