520 



OUR NATIVE ORCHIDS. 



where there are no ants, stay green all summer. The 

 smooth bright green parallel-veined leaves are handsome. 



C. f>ubescens and C. farviflorum, the large and small 

 yellow lady's-slippers, grow on wet uplands. C. pubes- 

 cens varies much in size and color. In some places you 

 will find that the flowers of this plant have small lips and 

 dark brown sepals and petals ; in other places they will 

 have large lips and pale brown or greenish sepals and 

 petals. I have some with the sepals and petals almost a 

 pure yellow. These two plants take readily to cultiva- 

 tion. It does not seem to make much difference when 

 they are taken from the woods, but C. acaule, which is 

 found on much drier ground, and is much more plenti- 

 ful, is a little harder to naturalize. Toward fall seems 

 to be the best time to take it up, as plants that are taken 

 up in the spring, or when in bloom, very often die about 

 the middle of summer. The flower varies from rose- 

 purple and pink to pure white, 

 but the white variety is quite 

 rare. 



C. pubcsccns does not fc 

 well. The flower bursts out 

 before the plant has unfolded 

 its leaves, and then it is a cur- 

 ious sight, with a thick green 

 stalk three inches high and the 

 flower upside down or side- 

 ways. The leaves are devel- 

 oped after flowering. C. acaule 

 is a good plant to force, and in 

 March a pot with three or four 

 plants in bloom is a pretty 

 sight. The foliage is be 

 ful and a much richer 

 green than when grown 

 outdoors. 



June brings us the 

 Po^onia ophioglos- 

 soidcs, which is 

 found in wet, 

 sunny places and 

 meadows, its 

 charming pink or 

 white flowers sending 

 out a delicious perfume. 

 These plants can be had 

 in bloom as early as 

 April, and will fill a 

 room with their frag- 

 rance. A boon compan- 

 ion to the pogonia is the showy calopogon, bearing from 

 three to ten flowers of the brighest pink-purple, but 

 lacking in fragrance. It grows from ten inches to 

 nearly two feet high. 



GOODYERA PUBESCENS 



It does not seem to do so well in 



the garden as in a pot or box. I filled a deep cigar-box 

 full of bulbs, and wintered them over in a cold room. 

 They came up large, healthy plants, and had fine, large 

 flowers, while those in the garden were small, the stems 

 weak, and hardly any of them 

 bloomed. The calopogons force well, 

 but I have not had them in bloom 

 earlier than about the second week 

 in May. A plant with ten flowers 

 lasted just a month from the time 

 the first flower opened till the last 

 flower dropped its lip. 



Ilnbcnaria Jimbriala, with its 

 spike of large lilac-colored flowers is 

 a very showy species. It is found in 

 wet woods and bogs, and blooms in 

 June. It blooms well in the garden, 

 but does not grow so high as in the 

 woods. The bracts, or upper leaves, 

 instead of being three or four inches 

 apart, as when found wild, were 

 nearly opposite. H. psycodcs is an- 

 other handsome species similar to H. 

 fimbriata, but the flowers are 

 smaller, more crowded, more numer- 

 ous, and of a deeper shade of rose- 

 purple. It grows in similar situa- 

 tions, but blooms from the last of 

 July to the middle of August. It 

 succeeds in the garden almost or 

 quite as well as //. fimbi-iata. 



Liparis liliij'olia is 

 another June orchid, 

 growing in soft, grassy 

 places in woods, its bulb 

 half out of the ground. 

 It sends up two green 

 leaves and a stalk from 

 four to six inches high, 

 lULTiFLORA. ]-,earing, perhaps, a few 

 s, or, perhaps, nearly thirty curious- 

 looking flowers. The sepals are stiff and green- 

 ish ; the thread-like petals and lip are purplish. 

 It grows much higher under cultivation. I had 

 one plant that bore over fifty flowers and was 

 over a foot high. 



When once the simple rules of culture neces- 

 sary for our native orchids are understood, any 

 of us may indulge in orchid blossoms as beau- 

 tiful as those which cost fabulous sums ; for 

 the whole aristocratic cypripedium family will 

 you find a finer flower than that of C. spcctabile? On 

 the shaded borders of lakes in parks and gardens it 

 spreads into masses of beautiful bloom. V. 



CORALLORHIZA 



outer peta 



/here 



