THE NATIVE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



153 



Albinism, in the vegetable kingdom is not uncommon. 

 We are constantly finding it everywhere. Dr. Asa 

 Gray once said, after his attention had been repeatedly 

 called to various examples of these white-flowered 

 forms, on the ground that they should be made varieties, 

 " I wish I could print on the top of every page in my 

 botany, ' Expect to find a white one.' " 



It was in Stowe, Mass., in a rich, moist wood that 

 I first saw the larger yellow lady's slipper (C". iv/.i ). 



There was a large patch of them, and their rich golden 

 colors were exquisite, the large, green leaves on the 



stem adding 



\ much to their 



beauty. It is 

 a rarer plant 

 than the last, 

 though occur- 

 ring through- 

 out the states, 

 as is also the 

 smaller y e 1 - 

 low lady's 

 slipper [C. 



which has the 

 same range. 

 This plant I 

 first saw in 

 Acton, Mass., 

 on a richly 

 wooded slope. 

 I was con- 

 ducted to the 

 spot by an old 

 man, who 

 lived near by, 

 an enthusias- 

 tic admirer of 

 nature and 

 nature's 

 works, and a 

 worsh i p p e r 

 o f Thoreau. 

 His small col- 

 lection of 

 books c o n - 

 tained a com- 

 plete set of 

 Thoreau's 

 works, and he 

 always had 

 an apt quota- 

 t i o n from 

 them at hand. 

 He took m e 

 through the 

 pastures to 

 this hidden 



nook and called it his flower garden. None other knew 

 (.he place, and he watched over the little plants with the 



n 



Fig. 3. LiPARis liliifolia. 



Fig. 



Habenaria dilatata 

 tridentata. 



AND H. 



greatest care. I was allowed to take a single specimen. 

 C. pu/iL-scc-ns IS about two feet high and is a much larger 

 plant than its near rela- 

 tive, C. pai'viflorttm . 



It has never been my 

 fortune t o see our two 

 other lady's slippers, 

 though I have them in my 

 herbarium. The most 

 beautiful of all the genus 

 is the showy lady's slipper 

 (C. speclahile), growing in 

 bogs in the western part of 

 our state and in Maine. I 

 have seen it in cultivation 

 at the botanic garden at 

 Cambridge, and it is indeed 

 worthy its name, being two 

 feet high, with large stem 

 leaves and a most exquisite ^ " 

 white and purple flower. 

 The other plant i s the 

 Ram's Head lady's slipper 

 (f. tirietitnnn), with a small 

 greenish brown flower, 

 growing in northern New 

 England. 



Let us now turn to the habenaria or rein- orchis, of 

 which we have 13 species. The showiest one of this 

 genus and, to my mind, of all our orchids, is the purple 

 fringed orchis (//. fimbriaia , Fig. i). We could go to 

 many places, for it is abundant throughout, if 3 0U know 

 the proper localities. It lo\es wet, shady nooks, and 

 delights to occupy the borders of a wooded stream, 

 where these beautiful plants, standing at intervals on the 

 bank, look like red-coated sentinels in a xow . It is 

 about two feet high and bears a raceme from three or 

 four inches to a foot in length, of purple or red flowers 

 each an inch long. No cultivated orchid can exceed the 

 rich delicacy of hue of this native plant. The finest 

 specimen I ever saw was in the Wild River Valle\ , Me., 

 one July. I have it in my herbarium, and delight to 

 look at it. The plant is nearly three feet tall, and the 

 raceme, crowded with flowers, is a foot long. 



A moth visits the flower to draw nectar from the long 

 tube or spur with which it is furnished. As it inserts its 

 proboscis into the tube, each eye necessarily comes in 

 contact with a viscid disk in the flower center. The 

 moth withdraws its head after feeding, and the disks 

 follow, each attached to a little stalk, on the end of 

 which is a pollinium or pollen-mass, the separate pollen 

 grains being connected by fine threads. Almost imme- 

 diately, these stalks, which at first have an upright posi- 

 tion on the moth's eye, assume a downward position by 

 a contracting process, so that when our moth visits 

 another flower to gather more sweets, he unconsciously 

 thrusts the pollen masses against the glutinous stigma, 

 and thus effects cross-fertilization. This is one of 

 Nature's many means to an end. And yet, before Dar- 



