THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
bile) is one of our ver^^ finest wild flowers. It is pure white, 
except near the base of the shpper, wliere it is painted with 
rich purple. The yellow lady's slippers are nearly as choice, 
and much more common. The purple or stemless species is 
the most frequent of all. It grows in dry, sandy districts. 
In New Brunswick I have observed that it is quite as often 
white as colored. Is not albinism developed in many species 
as w^e go north ? 
Once upon a time, way back in 1866, the writer had the 
good fortune to find in New Brunswick two specimens of the 
rare and beautiful Calypso borcalis. Years afterwards he 
celebrated the event in lines to "Calypso, a Rare Orchid of 
the North/' in the New York Evening Post. The peculiar 
effect it had upon him, as something classic and mystical, 
is sung into that poem, which has often reappeared in orchid 
literature. To discourage the young from the hope of sus- 
taining the vital spark by verse, the author will add that he 
never received a cent for it. Stick to prose, young friends, 
and of that be chary. 
A very beautiful, and still rather common, orchid, 
which, as it is uprooted and sold in great bunches in our city 
streets, bids fair to ere long disappear, is the Arethusa bul- 
bosa. Its leafless stem arises from a bulb, often immersed 
in peat moss. The solitary flower is of a deep magenta, 
with a lip fringed with gold and spotted with deep purple 
and white. It is odorless, and hence easily distinguished 
from Pogonia ophioglossoides, a pretty flower, paler in color, 
which very closely resembles it. This has a green leaf, too. 
half way up its stem. Another species of Pogonia. dark, 
livid purple and green in its colors, is found semi-occasion- 
ally in dense woods. 
Calopogon pulcheUus is a beauty, even in its beautiful 
family. It grows in peat bogs or damp places, and is of a 
deep, rich magenta, a color of which Nature is fonder than 
