90 



BIRDS AND FLOWERS. 



some of the members fell on their knees before the 

 orchid's fragrant beauty. This eypripedium grows 

 to the height of two feet or more, and its lush, green 

 foliage strongly suggests the false hellebore. It is 

 ranked as the loveliest of its class in eastern North 

 America. Alas ! Ilium fuit! We no longer find it on 

 that hill slope, but must look for its diminished and 

 transplanted beauty in some of our gardens. We 

 have still another eypripedium in Concord, the much 

 prized yellow lady 's slipper, but the man who tracked 

 it to its remote haunt has wisely refused to divulge 

 its whereabouts either for love or money. 



West Concord, which our ancestors called Rattle- 

 snake Plain, was once the favored home of other rare 

 orchids. The exquisite arethusa, which Miss Wilkins 

 has celebrated in one of her most spiritual "Under- 

 studies," formerly grew in the ravine near the old 

 Priest Tenney place. Of late years it has been occa- 

 sionally found in a meadow across the river. 



The farms at West Concord, from the Farnum place 

 northward, may be called two-story farms. Part of 

 the land lies on a level with the street, then suddenly 

 slopes down an abrupt bank to the interval bordering 

 on the shifting Merrimack. It was in a boggy 

 meadow on the lower story of one of these farms that 



