ROYAL FAMILY OF ORCHIDS. 



91 



the Wild Flower Club had one of its choicest pre- 

 serves. It was the one place where we could go the 

 latter half of June and be sure of finding quantities 

 of the crimson calopogons and the fragrant, shell-pink 

 pogonias. The meadow was fairly dotted with their 

 slender stems, six to ten inches high, each topped with 

 an exquisite, inch-wide blossom. The bog looked like 

 a great green cushion set with jewelled stickpins. 

 Here too we found the little fen orchis or twayblade, 

 insignificant but interesting, as are all the members of 

 this royal family; the ragged fringed orchis, which 

 also grows at Martin's Cove; and several rare ferns. 

 "We had come to feel a proprietary right in our 

 meadow, for it seemed a piece of waste land, except 

 for its burden of beauty. 



One summer we went as usual to admire our harvest 

 — we were scrupulous about gathering too much of it ; 

 and to our horror and astonishment we found that 

 there had been a change of owners ; the bog had been 

 drained, the soil turned over, our treasure house had 

 been looted, and common, commercial grass was grow- 

 ing where once waved the fairy flags of the orchids. 

 Calopogons and pogonias are still with us in other 

 places, but they occur occasionally and incidentally. 



