of unpretentious flowers. Two great leaves, sometimes as large as
dinner plates, attract the eye to where they glisten on the
ground. The spur of the blossom, the nectary, "implies a welcome
to a tongue two inches long, and will reward none other," says
William Hamilton Gibson. "This clearly shuts out the bees,
butterflies, and smaller moths. What insect, then, is here
implied? The sphinx moth, one of the lesser of the group. A
larger individual might sip the nectar, it is true, but its
longer tongue would reach the base of the tube without effecting
the slightest contact with the pollen, which is, of course, the
desideratum." How the moth, in sipping the nectar, thrusts his
head against the sticky buttons to which the pollen messes are
attached, and, in trying to release himself, loosens them; how he
flies off with these little clubs sticking to his eyes; how they
automatically adjust themselves to the attitude where they will
come in contact with the stigma of the next flower visited, and
so cross-fertilize it, has been told in the account of the great
purple-fringed orchis of similar construction. To that species
the interested reader is, therefore, referred; or, better still,
to the luminous description by Dr. Asa Gray.


WHITE-FRINGED ORCHIS
(Habenaria blephariglottis) Orchid family

Flowers - Pure white, fragrant, borne on a spike from 3 to 6 in.
long. Spur long, slender; oval sepals; smaller petals toothed;
the oblong lip deeply fringed. Stem: Slender, 1 to 2 ft. high.
Leaves: Lance-shaped, parallel-veined, clasping the stem; upper
ones smallest.