162 
NATURE STUDY. 
and beeches are the prevailing trees. The undershrubs 
are small and scanty, for the ground is strewn with rocks, 
mostly jagged and angular, as if split off by frost, ages ago 
from the ledges farther up. In the little depressions be¬ 
tween the rocks there are accumulations of leaf-mold. 
Here is the place and now is the time to begin the search. 
No highland huntsman ever stalked the deer with greater 
ardor than that which seizes the true lover of wild plants 
when he is on such a trail as this! Took where the fur¬ 
rows still remain in which the melting snows ran off last 
spring—look all around the bases of the tree trunks—look 
in the little leaf-strewn hollows between the rocks—look 
where a musical gurgling betrays the underground rill! 
Ah ! do you see this little thing ? What a dainty bit it is 
among its plainer companions ! The plant is just about 
five inches high, with a purplish stem which bears a few 
very small clasping leaves. Near the summit there is a 
flower of exquisite shape, color and odor. That it is an 
orchid is at once evident, for the three sepals and the two 
unchanged petals are there, all of the purest white, tinged 
with pink-purple, and the lip is there, similarly tinted, but 
with the addition of a delicate greenish crest along the 
middle. It is truly a fairy flower. For a wonder, it has 
an appropriate common name, “ three-birds,” the best de¬ 
veloped plants having usually about three blossoms pen¬ 
dent from the axils of the little leaves. The botanical 
name is Pogonia pendula Tindl, or P. trianthrophora 
(Sw.) B. S. P, This is the rarest of our three species of 
Pogonia, P. ophioglossoides being common and P. verticil- 
lata rather rare. 
That was a red letter day when in mid August about 
ten years ago I lighted upon these rare orchids. I found 
them in two stations about half a mile apart. In the sta¬ 
tion where they were most abundant they grew in patches 
or colonies. In one patch about fourteen b}^ eight inches 
