ARETHUSA 



Arethusa bulbosa Linnaeus 



The arethusa has a single large, one-sided flower with a delicate 

 scent like that of fresh red raspberries. The recurved lip, with its 

 fringes, forms a capital landing platform for visiting insects. As with 

 many other orchids, the bees are frequent visitors to this plant. The 

 flower is so constructed that the bee, in raising his head to depart after 

 sipping the nectar, comes in contact with a few soft pellets of pollen, 

 which are deposited upon his head from the helmet-shaped anther. 

 Some of this pollen may be transferred to the stigmas of the next flower 

 that he visits, although more often it is brushed off by other parts of 

 the flower. Because of the infrequency of cross-pollination seeds rarely 

 mature. 



The name was given to the plant by Linnaeus, who recalled the 

 myth of the nymph Arethusa, changed by Diana into a fountain, in 

 order to protect her from the river god Alphaeus, who fell deeply in 

 love with her on seeing her at her bath. 



Owing to the great demand for this orchid by European collectors, 

 it has been nearly exterminated in many sphagnum bogs where it 

 formerly grew in great abundance. 



Arethusa may be found from North Carolina northward to Maine 

 and Newfoundland, and westward to Indiana and Minnesota. 



The specimen sketched was obtained from a swamp a few miles east 

 of Washington, District of Columbia, where the plant is extremely rare. 



PLATE 57 



