into the flower as an insect would enter. Withdraw the pencil, and one
or both of the pollen masses will be found sticking to it, and already
automatically changing their attitude. In the case of the large,
round-leaved orchis, whose greenish-white flowers are fertilized in a
similar manner by the sphinx moth, the anther sacs converge, like little
horns; and their change of attitude while they are being carried to
fertilize another flower is quite as exquisitely exact.


White-fringed Orchis

_Habenaria blephariglottis_

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

_Preferred Habitat_--Peat-bogs and swamps.

_Flowering Season_--July-August.

_Distribution_--Northeastern United States and eastern Canada to
Newfoundland.

One who selfishly imagines that all the floral beauty of the earth was
created for man's sole delight will wonder why a flower so exquisitely
beautiful as this dainty little orchid should be hidden in inaccessible
peat-bogs, where overshoes and tempers get lost with deplorable
frequency, and the water-snake and bittern mock at man's intrusion of