126 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 
I do not often find a Rattle-snake Plantain in bloom; and an 
experienced botanist, whose travels in our State cover a wide 
and varied tract of country, assures me (1883) that he has not 
come across a flowering specimen for two years, though there 
is hardly a patch of woods of any size that does not contain 
both species. 
I happened to be in a little grove of hemlocks two years 
ago, in September, and noticing that these Orchids were quite 
abundant, counted them roughly. Out of *200 plants of G. 
pubescens, young and old, only 12 had flowered, and 20 plants 
of G. repens furnished but 2 spikes. A more careful estimate in 
the following year resulted in 
giving 102 flower spikes from 
, 572 plants, young and old, of 
o vi G. pubescens. One patch, that 
y lay like a mat on the ground, 
had 226 plants in it and but 
15 spikes. G. repens in this 
place is very scattered, and I 
saw but one plant and this 
Fic. 39.—FLower or Downy GoopYvERa 
Lip, the other parts removed. had not flowered. I have 
Root of same. 
noticed that the Goodyeras 
always mature their ovaries. In Scotland, G. repens is fertil- 
ized by humble-bees, and I suppose they perform the same 
offices in this country; but it would seem as if they must 
drain the little white syrup pitchers in a very bungling way. 
“That arrangements for propagation,” says Sachs, “ are espe- 
cially promoted by the upright growth of the stem is evident 
from the fact that in the large number of plants which develop 
their leaves in a rosette close to the ground, or on a stem that 
creeps along it, a rapidly ascending flower-stem is formed only 
just before the unfolding of the flower-buds. [This is] strik- 
ingly the case in the case of parasites (Neottia) which vegetate 
below and blossom above.” 
