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Title: Bog-trotting for orchids
Author: Grace Greylock Niles
Release date: July 8, 2025 [eBook #76463]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: G. P. Putnam's sons, 1904
Credits: Peter Becker and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BOG-TROTTING FOR ORCHIDS ***
Bog-trotting for orchids
“_I enter a swamp as a sacred place._”—Thoreau
BOG-TROTTING
_FOR_
ORCHIDS
_By_ GRACE GREYLOCK NILES
[Illustration]
_With Illustrations from Nature_
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
_New York and London_
The Knickerbocker Press
_1904_
COPYRIGHT, 1904
BY
GRACE GREYLOCK NILES
Published, April, 1904
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
TO
GENEVIEVE FARNELL
IN GRATEFUL APPRECIATION
OF
HER AID AND ENCOURAGEMENT
[Illustration: =The Pink Moccasin-Flower.= (_Cypripedium acaule._)
“_One true-born blossom, native to our skies,_
_We dare not claim as kin,_
_Nor frankly seek, for all that in it lies,_
_The Indian’s moccasin._”
ELAINE GOODALE.]
Preface
During many seasons spent in the Hoosac Valley, it has been a source of
great pleasure to me to trace mountain streams through moss-grown ravines
to their beginnings, and to explore the almost inaccessible recesses of
the sphagnous boglands. I have found it a delight to study the orchids,
ferns, and various flowers sheltered in their homes, far removed from the
roadside. I seldom follow any well-worn forest paths, for I have observed
that the rarer plants do not dwell where the foot of man or the grazing
herds have wandered. So it happens that the walks described in these
pages lead mostly across lots, over hills and mountains, and through
swamps.
The Hoosac Valley lies in the heart of the irregular Taconic Mountains,
and extends over the southwestern part of Bennington County, Vermont, and
the northwestern part of Berkshire County, Massachusetts. This region has
a soil peculiarly adapted to the origin and growth of orchids. Here along
the numerous streams and in the little vales are many unfathomable peat
and marl beds which are veritable orchid gardens. The valley seems to be
the common ground where rare plants from the North and South, as well as
the migrating species from the East and West, meet and overlap each other.
Many people are accustomed to think of the orchid as a tropical flower
which grows in our country only in cultivation and under highly
artificial conditions. It is, however, true that many of the most
attractive species of this beautiful group are endemic to most parts of
the United States. There are to-day, according to conservative reports,
from twenty-seven to thirty genera and from one hundred and fifty to
one hundred and sixty species of native orchids found in North America,
north of Mexico. Most of these are terrestrial or earth-loving. There are
eleven epiphytes, all of which are found only in the Southern States.
The range of the North American orchids extends wherever sunshine
and moisture prevail, nearly as far north as the Arctic Circle. Four
Cypripediums grow between latitudes 54° and 64°, and from fifteen to
eighteen species of the Orchid Family are natives of Alaska.
The North Atlantic region, covering northeastern United States and
Canada, produces seventy-one species of Orchidaceæ; of these from
forty-eight to fifty-six are reported for New England, and from forty
to forty-two are found in the Hoosac Valley. Of the seventy-one North
Atlantic orchids only fifteen or sixteen have not been found within
Vermont. The most widely-known genus—_Cypripedium_, or Moccasin-Flower—is
represented by thirteen species on the North American continent. This
includes the single Mexican species. Six of this number have been
collected in Connecticut, and five grow in the Hoosac Valley.
The excursions which I have recorded in this book were made particularly
in search of orchids; but I have collected and observed all other flowers
of interest which grow in the region which I have traversed, for the
purpose of showing the natural environments of orchids, and introducing
their near neighbors of swamp, forest, and rocky pasture-land.
G. G. N.
WILLIAMSTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS.
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
_First Season_
I. OFF TO THE HILLS OF BERKSHIRE AND BENNINGTON 3
II. BALL BROOK AND THE BOGS OF ETCHOWOG 15
III. THE HAUNTS OF THE RAM’S-HEAD MOCCASIN-FLOWERS 39
IV. THE STOLEN MOCCASINS 44
V. THE QUEEN OF THE INDIAN MOCCASIN-FLOWERS 55
VI. HAIL STORMS AT ETCHOWOG 72
VII. SWEET POGONIAS AND LIMODORUMS 83
VIII. A COLONY OF RAM’S-HEADS IN WITCH HOLLOW 95
IX. OVER THE HUCKLEBERRY PLAINS 115
_Second Season_
X. WESTVILLE SWAMPS AND MOUNT CARMEL, CONNECTICUT 125
XI. MAY SHOWERS AND WHITE MOCCASIN-FLOWERS 137
XII. SAUCY JAYS AND POLYPORES 149
_Third Season_
XIII. THE SWAMPS AND HILLS OF MOSHOLU AND LOWERRE, NEW YORK 157
XIV. THE SWAMP OF ORACLES—HOOSAC VALLEY 167
XV. WHITE OAKS AND GREGOR ROCKS 183
XVI. ALPINE BLOSSOMS OF THE DOME 201
XVII. THE CASCADE AND BELLOWS-PIPE, NOTCH VALLEY, BERKSHIRE
COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS 212
XVIII. THE NATURAL BRIDGE OF MAYUNSOOK VALLEY, NORTHERN BERKSHIRE 224
XIX. ORANGE MOUNTAINS, AND SALT MEADOWS, NEW JERSEY 231
APPENDIX—NEW ENGLAND ORCHIDS 239
INDEX 285
[Illustration]
Illustrations
The photographs in this list marked thus * were taken by Miss Katherine
Lewers, the others by the author. The coloring is the work of the author.
Of the fifteen genera of _Orchidaceæ_ in New England, all save _Listera_,
_Tipularia_, and _Aplectrum_ are represented in these illustrations.
PAGE
The Pink Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium acaule_)* _Frontispiece_
_Colored_
The Large Yellow Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium hirsutum_)* 4
_Colored_
The Botanizing Can, or Vasculum, Showing the White-Petaled Lady’s
Slipper and Maiden-Hair Fern* 8
Mount Greylock’s Brotherhood—the Berkshire Highlands, from Mount
Œta, Bennington County, Vermont, Showing the College Town of
Williamstown in the Valley* 10
The Western Gateway of Hoosac Mountain, the Entrance to Hoosac
Tunnel, North Adams, Massachusetts 14
Source of photograph unknown.
Ball Brook, in the Swamp of Oracles, Pownal, Vermont* 18
The Showy Lady’s Slipper—the Queen of the Indian Moccasin-Flowers
(_Cypripedium reginæ_)* 24
_Colored_
The Fleur-de-Lis (_Iris versicolor_)* 28
The Fountain of Arethusa, near the Bogs of Etchowog, Pownal, Vermont 30
Round-Leaved Sundew (_Drosera rotundifolia_) 32
The Carnivorous Plants, commonly called Pitcher Plants, and Dumb
Watches (_Sarracenia purpurea_) 34
The Bogs of Etchowog, Showing the Dome in the Distance, Pownal,
Vermont* 36
The Ram’s-Head Lady’s Slipper (_Cypripedium arietinum_) 42
The Pink Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium acaule_)* 48
This is the only two-leaved _Cypripedium_ found in the
Atlantic region.
_Colored_
The Tall White Northern Orchis (_Habenaria dilatata_), near
Arethusa’s Spring, Bogs of Etchowog, Pownal, Vermont 52
_Colored_
The Showy Orchis (_Orchis spectabilis_) 56
The first orchid of the spring, found near the rocky borders of
the Thompson Brook, East Pownal, Vermont.
_Colored_
The Small Yellow Fragrant Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium
parviflorum_)* 60
_Colored_
The Small White Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium candidum_) 62
_Colored_
The Queen of the Indian Moccasin-Flowers (_Cypripedium reginæ_),
from the Bogs of Etchowog, Pownal, Vermont 68
The Small Purple-Fringed Orchis (_Habenaria psycodes_) 72
The Showy Lady’s Slipper (_Cypripedium reginæ_)* 78
_Colored_
The Northern Gap, Showing the Taconic Mountains of Bennington
County, from Mount Œta, Vermont. The Bennington Battle
Monument towers to the left in the Distance* 86
The Rose Pogonia (_Pogonia ophioglossoides_) 88
_Colored_
The Thompson Brook, East Pownal, Vermont 90
The Grass Pink (_Limodorum tuberosum_) 92
This is a strange, beautiful orchid with a straight
seed-pod (ovary).
_Colored_
The Perry Elm, Marking the Site of Fort Massachusetts, on the
Harrison’s Flats, North Adams, Massachusetts, Showing
Saddleback Mountain in the Distance 96
The Small Round-Leaved Orchis (_Habenaria Hookeriana_)* 100
_Colored_
The Showy Orchis (_Orchis spectabilis_)* 104
Showing the plant nearly natural size.
_Colored_
The Large Purple-Fringed Orchis (_Habenaria grandiflora_) 110
From lithograph in Meehan’s _Native Flowers and Ferns of the
United States_, 1: 1878. By permission.
_Colored_
The Blackberry Blossoms from Mount Œta, Pownal, Vermont* 112
The Yellow Clintonia (_Clintonia borealis_), Rattlesnake Brook
Swamp, Mount Œta, Pownal, Vermont 116
“White, innocent twigs of apple”* 126
The Woodman’s Road through Rattlesnake Swamp, Mount Œta, Pownal,
Vermont 134
The Beautiful Arethusa (_Arethusa bulbosa_) 144
_Colored_
The Rattlesnake Plantain (_Peramium_), a Group of Three Species
Collected on Rattlesnake Ledge, Mount Œta, Pownal, Vermont 150
The Snowy Dogwood Blossoms, from the Hills of Mosholu, New York* 158
1. Indian Pipes (_Monotropa uniflora_); 2. Pine-Sap (_Monotropa
Hypopitys_) 164
The Snow-Plant of the Sierra Nevada Mountains (_Sarcodes
sanguinea_)* 166
Motherless Baby Whippoorwills* 176
A Colony of the Small Yellow Fragrant Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium
parviflorum_) in the Glen of Comus, District Fourteen, Pownal,
Vermont* 178
_Colored_
The Mountain Laurel (_Kalmia latifolia_) 184
The Gregor Rocks, Hoosac Valley, from Pownal Centre Road, Vermont* 188
The Pot-Hole of Wash-Tub Brook, Pownal, Vermont, Showing the
Stream Whirling through its Basin 190
An Ancient Pot-Hole, Showing an Erstwhile Revolving Stone, Located
on the Granite Ridge, near the Wolf’s Den, Bronx Park, New
York City* 194
The Bluebells of New England (_Campanula rotundifolia_)* 196
Three Rare Ferns from Gregor Rocks and Wash-Tub Brook Region,
Pownal, Vermont: 1. Rue-in-the-Wall Spleenwort (_Asplenium
Ruta-muraria_); 2. Purple-Stemmed Cliff-Brake (_Pellæa
atropurpurea_); 3. Walking Fern (_Camptosorus rhizophyllus_)* 198
The Rocking Boulder, Located on the Granite Ridge near the Bear’s
Den, in the Zoölogical Garden, Bronx Park, New York City 200
A pressure of fifty pounds causes this boulder to move about
two inches.
From photograph by George Stonebridge.
The Red Wood Lily (_Lilium Philadelphicum_) 210
The Cascade of Notch Brook, at the Base of Mount Greylock’s
Brotherhood, North Adams, Massachusetts 212
Notch Valley and the Bellows-Pipe, North Adams, Massachusetts.
Mount Greylock towers up on the right, and the Ragged
Mountains on the left hand 218
The Marble Arch of the Natural Bridge, North Adams, Massachusetts 228
The Star-Blossoms of the Grass of Parnassus (_Parnassia
Caroliniana_), and the Ladies’ Tresses 234
The Hoosac River, Pownal, Vermont* 238
The Fragrant White Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium Montanum_) 242
_Colored_
The Showy Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium reginæ_)* 244
This is the most gorgeous _Cypripedium_ in the world, and without
doubt one of the most ancient types of the genus.
_Colored_
The Pink Moccasin-Flower—the Stemless Lady’s Slipper (_Cypripedium
acaule_)* 246
Showing the structure of the pendulous and bi-lobed labellum,
and the processes of the sepals and petals.
_Colored_
The Showy Orchis (_Orchis spectabilis_)* 248
The first orchid of the season, showing the hooded fold above the
orifice of the spur, and the processes of the flowers on the
bracted scape.
_Colored_
A Group of Three Species of Genus Habenaria: 1. The Tall Northern
Green Orchis (_Habenaria hyperborea_); 2. The Tall Northern
White Orchis (_Habenaria dilatata_); 3. The Large Round-Leaved
Orchis (_Habenaria orbiculata_)* 250
_Colored_
The Spikes of Habenaria (_Habenaria Andrewseii_ and _Habenaria
psycodes_) 252
The Small Bog Orchis (_Habenaria clavellata_) 254
Andrews’ Rose-Purple Orchis (_Habenaria Andrewseii_) 258
The Beautiful Arethusa (_Arethusa bulbosa_) 262
Showing the structural parts of the flower, the single leaf,
and bulbous root.
_Colored_
The Hooded Ladies’ Tresses (_Gyrostachys Romanzoffiana_) 264
The Nodding Ladies’ Tresses (_Gyrostachys cernua_) 266
The Slender Ladies’ Tresses (_Gyrostachys gracilis_) 268
The Haunts of the Rattlesnake Plantain (_Peramium_) amid the Pines
and Spruces of the Domelet, Pownal, Vermont 270
The Green Adder’s-Mouth (_Achroanthes unifolia_) 272
The Large Twayblade (_Leptorchis liliifolia_) 274
Northern Calypso (_Calypso bulbosa_) 276
From lithograph in Meehan’s _Native Flowers and Ferns of the
United States_, 1: 1878. By permission.
_Colored_
The Coral-Root (_Corallorhiza_) 280
The Grass Pink (_Limodorum tuberosum_) 282
A beautiful grassy-leaved orchid found in company with the
dainty Rose Pogonia, and frequently with the rarer Arethusa
in wild cranberry marshes.
_Colored_
Epiphytes, or Air Plants. A Corner in the Orchid House of the
Botanical Gardens of New York City* 284
FIRST SEASON
I
Off to the Hills of Berkshire and Bennington
It is not the walking merely, it is keeping yourself in tune
for a walk, in the spiritual and bodily condition in which
you can find entertainment and exhilaration in so simple and
natural a pastime.—BURROUGHS, _Pepacton_.
All winter I had been promising myself the pleasure of watching the
flowers unfold in the Bogs of Etchowog. On May 25th I reached the old
farm on Mount Œta, having departed from New York on May 14th, fully
equipped as a bog-trotter, with hunting-boots, rubber gloves, short
skirts and vasculum.
My route was through New Haven and Hartford, across the States of
Connecticut and Massachusetts. On my way I stopped for a brief visit at
the home of a friend in New Haven. In her garden, I found a corner of the
Taconic woodlands awakening. Here, in line and on time, stood five modest
Yellow Lady’s Slippers (_Cypripedium hirsutum_), members of the Orchid
Family; while along the same border clusters of the Showy Lady’s Slipper
(_Cypripedium reginæ_) were pushing their dewy-tipped beaks into light
and sunshine. Although rather late in their blossoming, compared with
the other sisters of this genus in New England, this species usually
reaches its prime about June 20th.
On the east side of the garden towered an ambitious row of ferns, some
twenty root clusters or more, including many rare species. Here was an
especially queer little strap-like leaf, which one would scarcely call a
fern unless one were a professed fern-hunter. It is the rare Walking Leaf
(_Camptosorus rhizophyllus_), the scientific name meaning a bent heap,
and the appearance of the plant indeed is suggestive of the name. The
frond is from four to twelve inches long, springing from a heart-shaped
base and reaching out a long, narrow runner, which readily roots at the
end again, and thence takes a step onward, and so on, until three or four
steps are taken, often in this way forming a beautiful carpet for the
cold gray lime rocks, which it prefers in its native haunts.
The Walking Fern is shy in its habitat, seeking the most hidden crevices
in ledges along our mountain sides. I have collected it in many dark
ravines, as well as along dry, rocky ridges in the Hoosac Highlands. It
takes kindly to cultivation for a season or two, and then dies out for
want of its natural soil of limestone.
[Illustration: =The Large Yellow Moccasin-Flower.= (_Cypripedium
hirsutum._)
This common _Cypripedium_ is closely allied with the Small Yellow
Fragrant species—_Cypripedium parviflorum_—with which it grows in
close comradeship, often intergrading. It is also nearly related with
the European Yellow Cypripedium (_Cypripedium calceolus_), the first
_Cypripedium_ described by Linnæus in 1740-1753.]
A short walk toward West Rock, New Haven, showed me how far advanced the
season really was. Here were crowds of children playing in fields covered
with violets and bluets, and farther down in the damp meadows were long,
serpentine lines of gold, where the Marsh Marigolds (_Caltha palustris_),
known commonly as Cowslips, were already fading. On the edges of the
swamp, the Marsh Buttercups of the Crowfoot Family (_Ranunculaceæ_), were
lifting their shallow yellow cups to catch the sunshine. We wandered on
through a pretty, wild bit of young woodland until we reached the border
of a murmuring stream, creeping onward through the vale and meadow,
touching the blossoming orchards here and there, and freshening the sweet
white violets on its brink.
North Adams, Massachusetts, was to be my next station. This city is
about two hundred miles from New York, among the Hoosac Highlands. I
almost expected to see reluctant snowdrifts still lingering in the fence
corners and shaded pine glens of this part of “Beautiful Berkshire,” and
I half hoped to find a few late clusters of the Trailing Arbutus (_Epigæa
repens_) creeping through the cold, mossy ravines.
Upon my arrival in North Adams, I looked through the bogs under the brow
of Hoosac Mountain near Aurora’s Lake, and I could perceive scarcely any
difference in the progress of flowers or foliage here from that of the
region from which I had just departed. Dogwood, apple trees, violets,
anemones and wake-robins were in blossom, while in the deeper bogland I
found one lone, pale Pink Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium acaule_).
American White Hellebore, so commonly known as Indian Poke or Itch
Weed (_Veratrum viride_), had already sent out a luxuriant growth of
green leaves, which for a moment deceived me—as it had done many times
before—by its resemblance to the foliage of the Showy Lady’s Slipper. The
leaves of both these plants are plicate, and have ever been confused even
by the earliest herbalists. Unrolling a spike of leaves one day, I found
I had actually disturbed the buds of the queen of the Lady’s Slippers
instead of the Hellebore, although they proved to be blasted. No doubt
some warm day had started them prematurely, frost and cold rains later
proving their ruin.
Here on a sheltered damp hillside, I found my first clusters of the
season of the Pink Azalea (_Azalea nudiflora_), which is commonly
known hereabout as Swamp-Apple, and which is very similar to _Rhodora
Canadensis_. These species belong to the Heath Family, one of the largest
among the flora of Hoosac Valley. The beautiful pink flowers of the Great
Rhododendron, which measure from one to two inches in diameter, render it
the most charming species of this group. It is cultivated extensively,
but grows in its natural wild state, in this region, only along the
margins of ponds near Montpelier and Wells River, in Vermont.
The American Mountain Laurel (_Kalmia_), which becomes so gorgeous later
in the season, the Lambkill, Labrador Tea, Andromeda and the Cassandra
are closely allied species of this group, common to this region. Other
familiar members of it are the Trailing Arbutus, Gaultheria, and the
Creeping Snowberry. They may be found in Aurora’s Swamp.
North Adams is not far from the sources of the south and north branches
of the Hoosac River, in a wild and rugged portion of Berkshire. The
Hoosac proper is formed at the junction of these two streams, in the
vicinity of the Print Works near Marshall Street in the city, and flows
on gently in a northwesterly course to join the Hudson, near Lansingburg.
Mountain streams in this region are numerous, and flow musically down
through deep chasms and over great marble precipices, to swell the Hoosac
as it glides slowly out through the deep-cut valley.
“We Hold the Western Gateway,” is part of the inscription on the seal
of the city of North Adams, which is known as the “Tunnel City.” This
is practically true, for the sole gateway of the trade from the Western
States passes though the flinty wall of the Hoosac Mountain, in order
to reach Boston direct. The idea of opening a path for transit through
the “Forbidden Mountain,” as the Indians called it, was conceived six
years after the first mail-coach and four-in-hand rattled through the
street of this town to Greenfield, in 1814. It was found impossible to
build the projected canal from Boston to Albany. The estimated cost of
building the tunnel was less than two million dollars, but when it was
completed in 1875, the total financial outlay had amounted to over twenty
millions. Until January 1, 1887, this tunnel was owned by the State of
Massachusetts, when it was purchased by the Fitchburg Railroad. It is
four and three fourths miles long, and twenty-six feet wide, permitting
of double tracks. The arch is from twenty-two to twenty-six feet high,
and at each portal there is a massive granite façade.
Whenever I come to the Hoosac Valley, I enter, if possible, by way of
this tunnel. I seem thus to close away the outer world, and to penetrate
a new realm hidden here in the seclusion of the marble highlands. This
triumph of man over the power of Nature needs no further introduction
here. I can never forget, however, the weary years of hardships endured
by those who toiled in its construction, entombed within the heart of
the mountain, subject to the dangers of quicksands, falling rocks, damp
and gases, explosives, fire and starvation, before the great work was
accomplished.
I enjoyed the ridges in the pastures along the foothills of the
grim-faced Tunnel Mountain, and about Aurora’s Lake, which reflects
like a pretty little mirror the rugged beauty of the hills. This lake
is partly natural, but now dammed artificially. Every line of its
terraced shores bears the scars of antiquity, which would indicate that
ten thousand years ago a larger lake slept in this hollow vale which
geologists have estimated at a depth of six hundred feet. Here are rich
deposits of glacial drift, and northeast of Aurora’s Lake are sphagnous
swamps, where I find many rare orchids and early spring blossoms. Here
both the pink and yellow Moccasin-Flowers bloom in May, while in June the
queen of the tribe unfolds her white-petaled purity.
[Illustration: =The Botanizing Can, or Vasculum, showing the White-Petaled
Lady’s Slippers and Maiden-Hair Fern.=]
This bogland is very similar to that of the Swamp of Oracles in Pownal,
in District Fourteen, save for the openness of the former’s shores.
Aurora’s Swamp is located in a deep flinty basin, surrounded only by low
tangled bushes and open pasture-land beyond, without forests to shield
the bogs from the sweep of winds.
The hills are strewn with great boulders left here in the Glacial Age,
which rest, poised as monuments of that mystical period. Especially
interesting are the dimpled erosions upon one boulder, which rests
just northeast of the lakelet, upon the ridges sloping eastward toward
the sphagnous swamp. There are visible deep scratches, hollows, arches
and miniature pillars, which the whirling eddies of the perilous waves
have eroded during the ages unknown. Higher on the summit of the Hoosac
rests another immense rock known to students of geology as the “Great
Vermonter.” It is said to have been brought from the marble and granite
heights of Vermont, imbedded in the ice-drift. Through the melting of the
glacial sheet, one of the drifting bergs left this hero of the ages as we
may see it now, moored and balanced high on old Hoosac’s brow.
The geological surveys of northern Massachusetts, by President Hitchcock
of Amherst in 1838, early identified all of the low, round hills to be
seen southward from Aurora’s Lake as the result of glacial action. Mount
Greylock’s Brotherhood is a group of giant glacial hills, as it were,
and is the highest pile of Taconic formation in this State. The erosions
of the great ice-sheet are plainly seen on the rocky summits of these
mountains, and only time and the decay of the rock itself will do away
with these scars of that mystical age. The name of “Greylock” appears
to be derived from the lowering cloud-mist so often capping the whole
Brotherhood at early dawn or before a storm.
Vermonters who, from the hills at a great distance to the north, view
this group of mountains, depend upon this capping of clouds as a forecast
of the weather. Among the old folk, it is known and designated as
“Greylock’s Nightcap,” a portent of a coming storm.
Mount Greylock, the highest swell of this range, is 3600 feet above
sea level, and commands a variable and extensive view from its bald
summit, on which was early erected that first wooden observatory, during
President Griffin’s term at Williams College. Here the poet and the
philosopher, Hawthorne and Thoreau, have climbed to meditate.
Many a message has gone forth from these heights to bless the busy
world. Scarcely is there a son of old Williams who does not recall the
mountain-day excursions led by Professor Albert Hopkins, and the glory of
old Greylock at dawn and at the sunset hour.
Thoreau writes of it: “It would be no small advantage if every college
were thus located at the base of a mountain, as good at least as one
well-endowed professorship. It were as well to be educated in the shadow
of a mountain as in more classical shades. Some will remember, no doubt,
not only that they went to college, but that they went to the mountain.
Every visit to its summit would, as it were, generalize the particular
information gained below, and subject it to more catholic tests.”[1]
[Illustration: =Mount Greylock’s Brotherhood—the Berkshire Highlands,
from Mount Œta, Bennington County, Vermont, Showing the College Town of
Williamstown in the Valley.=]
The peak especially designated as Saddleback Mountain is at the junction
of the eastern abutments of that huge wall of Taconic Brotherhood which
appears south of the old battle-ground where formerly stood the early
border Fort Massachusetts, on the Harrison flats, near the flag station
of Greylock. The union of Mount Williams, sloping to the east, and
Prospect Mountain to the west forms the seat of the saddle.
Mount Hopkins—so named in honor of Professor Albert Hopkins of Williams,
the first nature-student of our land, making excursions afield in
1833—lies south of these. Old Greylock, proper, lifts its lofty brow
still farther south, being situated about in the centre of this great
range as it extends from east to west.
Beyond Greylock stretches a long, misty line of blue peaks against the
sky, which if observed from Mount Œta at the north, in Bennington County,
Vermont, may be traced to the southwest to Symond’s Peak, the lowest
of the group, named in memory of Captain Symond, who led the volunteer
forces from our hills and vales to the memorable Battle of Bennington
in 1777. Bald Mountain is also in the vicinity, and the closing in of
these several peaks has conspired to form what is known as the “Hopper,”
and the “Heart of Greylock.” The hollow vale amid these heights has the
appearance of the hoppers used by millers years ago.
Surely in the heart of the Taconics we are in one of the oldest rock
formations of the earth, and the green terraced stairs lead us slowly
down to the deep-set valley of the Hoosac, where once slept that ancient
lake. All that now remains of that Lake of Dawn is pocketed in the basin
under the Hoosac. The shores of Aurora’s Lake are lonely and still, save
for the marsh thrushes which skim low over the waves and whistle shrilly.
The groves of pine to the southeast are the haunts of solitude, and
those who wander here can well imagine that the Æolian harps among the
whispering trees are repeating a music of ages past, when only wind and
waves were known to these hills.
Amid these damp and reedy shores and swampy woods are tall brakes and
delicate Maiden-Hair Ferns. Here, too, the tall and stately Royal-Fern
(_Osmunda regalis_) flourishes in deep seclusion, sheltered by the
low-branching pines along the shore. It grows from two to four feet high
in this locality, and is of a deep rich crimson-green tone against the
grasses and bushes near. Mounds of moss, marking one of the trees of a
primitive forest rotting below the soil, are thickly carpeted with the
leaves of the Dog’s-Tooth Lily. Indeed, the picturesque paths which lead
through these woods wind through a veritable fairy-land of flowers and
ferns. One of these trails runs southward through rocky pastures, swamps
and thickets, toward the Tunnel’s western gate.
Along these slopes, among the limestone rocks, I found rows of the Ebony
Spleenwort Fern, rather rare in this much-travelled way; and on the brow
of this ridge were many species of common fern. The pastures are barren
and dry, with few bushes to break the dreary horizon, as one approaches
the western portal of the Tunnel.
I came upon one lone Apple-Thorn bush, of genus _Cratægus_ of the Apple
Family. Nearly opposite, across the valley of the south branch of the
Hoosac, which the Indians named the Ashuilticook, may be distinguished
the smoking Limekilns; while still farther southward, the white-spired
village of Adams nestles at the base of Greylock, which towers serenely
above the shaggy shoulders of Ragged Mountain. I wandered about the edges
of the Tunnel cliffs where, in years gone by, had stood the impoverished
cabins which sheltered the laborers who tunnelled the Hoosac. I descended
into the chasm and seated myself upon the wall of rocks, waiting for
the trains to appear and disappear at the portal in the side of the
hill. Presently one from the West crept ponderously into the cavern.
The echoing roar was smothered, and died slowly away until it became
an indistinct murmur. Not long afterward I felt, as well as heard, the
low breathings and rumblings of a locomotive coming in the opposite
direction. I heard its subterranean groans as of a great spirit, while
the smoke poured forth, pushed in volumes before the engine, wreathing
and curling about it as it emerged, and partially concealing its grim
outlines.
The faithful watchman, a modern Eckhart, sits before the entrance of the
Western Gateway of Hoosac Mountain, and warns the people against entering
through this portal to the greater world that lies beyond. It is as if
he wished to guard these children of the marble highlands from the risks
attendant upon the wild whirl of life beyond these quiet hills.
The sun was setting as I left him, calm but alert, at his post of duty,
trimming and lighting his colored lanterns for signals of danger or
safety to the approaching trains. Climbing up by the path which passes
the little red cottage on the crest of the hill on the north bank of the
chasm, I returned leisurely homeward, winding over the hillsides, far
above Aurora’s Lake, then down along the borders of the swamp-lands.
In the crevices of rock were creeping colonies of the Common Polypody
(_Polypodium vulgare_). Along the edges of this bog are still seen the
primeval stumps of the pine and hemlock forests, which clothed these
hillsides when only the Redmen dwelt and hunted among these wildernesses.
In May and early June these decaying stumps are usually draped with
Painted Trillium and the delicate vines of Gaultheria and the Creeping
Snowberry, while the Arbutus trails about luxuriantly, covering up the
ruins of years.
[Illustration: =The Western Gateway of Hoosac Mountain, the Entrance to
Hoosac Tunnel, North Adams, Massachusetts.=]
II
Ball Brook and the Bogs of Etchowog
Fringing the stream, at every turn
Swung low the waving fronds of fern;
From stony cleft and mossy sod
Pale asters sprang, and golden-rod.
WHITTIER, _The Seeking of the Waterfall_.
On May 25th I reached Pownal, Bennington County. Upon the following day I
explored the great swamps of Etchowog. Prepared with luncheon, vasculum,
basket for roots and my hound Major, I started on one of those happy
excursions such as Thoreau recommends we should take, “in the spirit of
undying adventure, never to return,—prepared to send back our embalmed
hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms.”[2]
Ball Brook, a sluggish stream flowing northwardly to East Pownal
swamps—commonly called the Bogs of Etchowog—has its source in the marshy
hillsides northwest of the schoolhouse in District Fourteen. Two streams
flow from this valley. One is called Ladd Brook, running southwesterly
and following the windings of the shady Ladd Road to Pownal village,
where it joins the Hoosac River. The other stream, Ball Brook, flows
north and northeast onward through innumerable and unfathomable swamps,
to Bennington village, ten miles north, there meeting the Walloomsac
River, which is also a tributary of the Hoosac, farther northward in its
course. This brook is rich in a continuous chain of peat bogs—rich from
an orchid-hunter’s point of view.
Although I have been familiar with this region from childhood, viewing it
from the roadside only, I never at any time had ventured to follow Ball
Brook through all its meanderings to the Bogs of Etchowog near Pownal
Pond, a distance of some three miles. This would not be a long walk on a
fair road, but it becomes rather dangerous and formidable when leading
through quaking marshes in the soaking currents of a stream.
A short distance to the right, north of the schoolhouse in Number
Fourteen, there is an old pathway nearly overgrown with bushy pines and
birch and chestnut underbrush. This I followed, entering the hollow under
the brow of the hill, and passing along the wood road which skirts the
margins of one of the deepest, darkest jungles in these regions. The old
people look upon it as akin to “Witch Hollow,” on the Gulf Road near by,
and tell strange tales of ghosts, and of some mythological peddler who
was swallowed here in the black mud of this ancient tarn, after having
been robbed of his fine silks and precious jewels.
Weird, hollow drummings issue and echo through these shaded vales from
time to time. Probably they are due, however, to nothing more startling
than the alarum of a partridge, or the hoot of the screech-owl; or the
creaking and rubbing of partially fallen trees against their supporting
brothers, voicing a portent of coming storm. I hear in this woodland
seclusion little save the whispering of the winds, the sighing of the
pines, and snapping of dead twigs, mingled with the chorus of the
thrushes. The first settlers here about interpreted these wood-sounds far
differently; then the primeval forests were dense, and the noises were
deep and full of mystery, and there was fear of the Redman’s war-whoop.
As Burroughs writes: “The ancients, like women and children, were not
accurate observers. Just at the critical moment their eyes were unsteady,
or their fancy, or their credulity, or their impatience got the better of
them, so that their science was half fact and half fable.... They sought
to account for such things without stopping to ask, Are they true? Nature
was too novel, or else too fearful to them to be deliberately pursued and
hunted down.”[3]
I stopped on a corduroy bridge to draw on my high-water boots and rubber
gloves, for one feels safer when entering this dense swamp if protected
from poisonous roots and foliage, biting insects and things that creep
and crawl.
I had started out with small belief that I would find any prime blossoms
of the Orchid Family, for nothing of importance had yet unfolded in
Aurora’s Swamp in North Adams. But when I penetrated the heart of these
rich, warm glooms, I found waiting for me a fragrant company of Dwarf
Yellow Lady’s Slipper (_Cypripedium parviflorum_); and innumerable
Stemless Pink Lady’s Slippers, more frequently called the Indian’s
Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium acaule_), stood as sentinels on the dryer
edges of the swamp.
The Marsh Marigolds were here also in their last stages, fading away,
but still sufficiently bright; with the late indigo-blue violets, which
rear their faces at least a foot high above the dark pools, to carpet the
marsh with gold and purple. Poison Ivy cropped out frequently among these
graceful orchids,—a beautiful vine, although unfriendly to man.
It is difficult to describe the dense gloom of this bog, closed in on all
sides by high rock-bound hills, which are clothed with pine and yellow
birch trees, and which in their turn are but foothills to the higher
watershed. It seems to have been a receiving basin for the waste and wear
of the heights above for thousands of years. Here are fallen trees of
every variety common in southwestern Vermont, and these prostrate giants
helped to form a safe footing through the quaking bogs.
Many cold springs under the hill to the south conspire to freshen the
marsh, and after sluggish oozing northward, they unite and form the brook
proper. The stream leads directly through the heart of the swamp, and at
last, gathering force, rushes down over rocky slopes, presently to enter
another swamp of greater breadth, filled with different trees and flowers.
[Illustration: =Ball Brook, in the Swamp of Oracles, Pownal, Vermont.=
“_Here, let these rivulets forever flow!_
_Drink from these highland domes the melting snow;_
_Drain from the dark ravines, and hollows near,_
_The mountain cascades, flowing soft and clear._”
G. G. N.]
The Showy Lady’s Slipper (_Cypripedium reginæ_) was just sending forth
its tiny roll of leaves, so I could not expect prime blossoms before June
15th at the earliest.
Seated on a decaying log, I ate my luncheon, with Major before me begging
impolitely for his portion, until I divided my cake with him. The
mosquitoes were so troublesome that I decided to push onward. Carefully
picking my way out of the swamp, I crossed the muddy brook, and found
myself in a dry, rocky pathway which winds around the hillside, but still
keeps within sound of the brook’s murmur.
In exquisite little glens beside the path were Painted Trilliums and
Stars-of-Bethlehem, while the white and gold stars of the dainty
Goldthread (_Coptis trifolia_) were shining amid the moss and their own
glossy green leaves.
In the bend of the stream a little farther on were some of the most
graceful little ferns, just near enough to the brink to catch now and
then a dash of spray from the rushing waters, swayed in the coolness all
day long, adding beauty to the nook.
Still farther on, I saw that by crossing the stream I could enter a
little ravine to the right, which promised hidden treasures. I waded
through the brook, which was too wide to jump across; I found that it
was also rather too deep for my boots, and that there were very few
stepping-stones to make a dry crossing possible. But of what matter is
a little water in one’s boots, when seeking the Gardens of the Gods?
I landed safely on the opposite bank, after frightening many a shy,
speckled trout from his hiding-place in this ideal fishing-hole.
I was now in a small, low-lying glen where foot of man has seldom been.
The soil, though much drier than the ground over which I had recently
passed, displayed a honeycombed appearance, showing where the water had
oozed away through the rich leaf-mould to seek the flowing stream beyond.
Whole constellations of star-flowers were here; both the Painted and
Crimson or Nodding Trilliums were abundant, asserting themselves and
their rights, if size of flowers and leaves may indicate strength, among
the tall, rank growth of the Common Brake (_Pteris aquilina_), which
frequently rise five feet in height. Close by their long, harsh lobes
grew the plicate leaves of the Indian Poke or White Hellebore. Skunk
Cabbage (_Spathyema fœtida_), so frequent in the swamps along Bronx River
in Greater New York, is rarely seen here, although I find lone specimens
now and then in Aurora’s Swamp in northern Berkshire, and in this jungle.
Lily leaves and Dwarf Cornel peeped out from every shadow. Here I found
the red-spotted leaves of Dog’s-Tooth Lily (_Erythronium Americanum_) and
Clintonia (_Clintonia borealis_), as well as the delicate leaves of the
False Lily-of-the-Valley (_Unifolium Canadense_), and several species of
Solomon’s Seal, while the weird Indian Cucumber (_Medeola Virginiana_)
rose up everywhere beneath the luxuriant ferns.
Dwarf Cornel, or Bunch Berry, locally known as Bear Berry (_Cornus
Canadensis_) was about to set its fruit. These berries are of a deep
vermilion color, and eatable if one has the patience to sever the seeds.
From the bark of this species of the Dogwood Family is extracted a tonic
which is very bitter.
I found the beautiful Star-Flowered Solomon’s Seal (_Vagnera stellata_),
and the deeper bogs revealed specimens of the rarer bog species, _Vagnera
trifolia_, which, in spite of its name, produced plants with more than
three leaves, and many beautiful fragrant flowers of a waxy white color.
Indian Turnip (_Arisæma triphyllum_), more commonly known to-day as
Jack-in-the-Pulpit, was numberless; the little priests in the pulpits
were dressed in cardinal’s robes trimmed with stripes of green, white,
and purple.
This sylvan retreat which yielded so many specimens of beautiful flowers
I called the “Glen of Comus,” for I could not rid my thoughts of the
deep, dark woodlands where Sabrina was lost among the enchanters.[4] I
fancied that the Purple Trilliums stood with nodding petals bowed down to
earth as though they were guilty of some crimson sin and dared not lift
their faces to the sun.
I gathered from every species some perfect treasure, and then returned,
wandering once more beside the cool brook. I wondered if it carried all
the memories of the forest fastness, gleaned among the roots of our
frail, beautiful hillside flowers, through the mighty rivers to the deep
seaweeds and strange aquatic blossoms which had at one time bloomed
among these very hills ages and ages ago.
Climbing a fence, I found myself in a parched, short-cropped cow-pasture,
but the stream soon passed into a large tamarack swamp, where in many
places neither man nor beast can wander with ease or safety. I rested
under a wide-spreading pine tree, looking the marsh over to choose the
best path through it, for I still had some distance to walk before I
could reach Pownal Pond and the Bogs of Etchowog.
In order to make my journey less burdensome, I decided to leave my
treasures of gold and crimson hidden in this stream, where they would
not only keep fresh, but would be much safer than with me. I felt that
they would be reasonably safe from marauders, for orchids are far more
numerous than human beings in this forlorn locality; for where verdant
meadows might spread were only uncultivated, almost impassable, dismal
swamp-lands.
At last my flowers were safely placed in the bend of the brook near an
old pine stump, where I made them fast, covering them with the coarse
brakes which grow everywhere; then I strode on northward through the
tamarack swamp. This marsh covers a large part of Ball Farm, from which
the brook crossing it derives its name.
Through the trees I could see the old weather-worn farm buildings,
nestling in the shade of a dozen or more large, thrifty maples, and
now and then I heard a faint murmur of distant voices. Suddenly they
subsided, and a small dog’s shrill bark told me that I was discovered,
mistaken perhaps for the veritable “Witch of the Hollow,” by the present
colored occupants.
There was no use in trying to follow the stream now, for its windings
were intricate and indefinite. It wandered all over the meadow marsh,
and splashed out in one great mud-hole, similar to that of the jungle in
District Fourteen, save that the meadow here was open, with very little
low tangle or underbrush in sight. Innumerable tamarack trees, however,
lifted their graceful spires throughout the bog; yet this did not prevent
the meadow from appearing flooded with sunshine.
Away over on the west side of this swamp were many low-spreading trees of
virgin pine, contrasting prettily with the lighter greens of the delicate
spires of tamarack. Between myself and the shore on either side of this
mud-swamp waved acres of Fleur-de-lis, which would soon color the whole
meadow with royal purple. Still westward of this lay an alder swamp. This
shrub, called Speckled or Hoary Alder, belongs to the Willow Family,
and grows about fifteen feet high, along swamp meadows, forming dense
thickets.
Many saucy swamp birds dwell here and appear tame; they came chattering
after me, fearing, no doubt, that I might be in search of their nests and
birdlings.
Under the pines on the border of the swamp I rested, finding the while
tender young Wintergreens (_Gaultheria_), and many edible red berries,
called Checkerberries, fruit of _Gaultheria_, sometimes known as
Partridge-berry and Boxberry. The last two names are more frequently
applied to the fruit of _Mitchella repens_, found growing in company with
_Gaultheria_, and producing edible scarlet berries on a trailing vine,
resembling myrtle. The flowers of this vine were now in bloom, giving
forth a delicate perfume. Their white and pinkish-purple blossoms dotted
the moss with a brilliancy like that of the Trailing Arbutus (_Epigæa
repens_), so lately faded.
The buds of _Moneses uniflora_ were putting forth their “single-delight,”
the name coming from their solitary flower. Here also were quantities of
the glossy, waxen leaves of Pipsissewa or Prince’s Pine (_Chimaphila_),
and low creeping evergreens. Common Club-Moss and Ground-Pine were
interlaced in their dark green beds, where had recently nestled the
clusters of arbutus, now brown and faded, although the mossy hummocks
still held the fragrance of their luxuriant green leaves. Whittier,
writing of these spicy flowers, associated them as the first flowers
which the Pilgrims looked upon after their landing on the bleak shores of
New England, at Plymouth, in the spring of 1621, and says:
Yet, “God be praise!” the Pilgrim said,
Who saw the blossoms peer
Above the brown leaves, dry and dead,
“Behold our Mayflower here!”[5]
In New England the Arbutus is commonly called “Mayflower,”—not that it
blooms especially in the month of May, for it has been found in northern
Berkshire as early as February and March. My observation is that prime
blossoms are found in the Hoosac Valley region from March 15th until May
15th. I have also gathered beautiful clusters as late as June 23d, in
cold nooks beneath the shades of spruce and pines. Their spicy perfume is
ever the delight of New Englanders.
[Illustration: =The Showy Lady’s Slipper—The Queen of the Indian’s
Moccasin-Flowers.= (_Cypripedium reginæ._)
Few poets have ever sung the praises of the Queen of the
Moccasin-Flowers, although a lovelier flower never beckoned to poetic
fancy.]
Scrambling with difficulty over a fence which sagged toward me, I entered
a neighboring pasture, finding here more alder trees. Small tamaracks,
Christmas spires of spruce, and pine seedlings filled the pasture with
fresh evergreens, making me fancy myself in a cultivated park, so regular
and trim they stood. Eastward crept Ball Brook, wandering through deep,
reedy grasses, where here and there stood tall spikes of last year’s
Cat-tail Flag (_Typha_). Here also grows the Sweet Flag or Calamus
(_Acorus_), which is not only good to eat, but a panacea for sore eyes.
The cat-tails stood stiffly erect, as if guarding the blossoming bog, and
serving, notwithstanding their dignity, as perches for the saucy finches
which still chattered after me.
Now I passed through a barway to the right, ever in hearing of the
gurgling stream, which had reached a hard, dry, gravelly soil, abruptly
following the downward slope around a hillside. A well-worn sheep path
led me down into a bog similar to the Glen of Comus in District Fourteen,
only if anything more wild and weird. Through the openings between the
trees and knob-like glacial hills, I caught glimpses of the bold, rugged
form of the Dome, standing coldly against the eastern horizon.
A glance through these glooms revealed another colony of the Showy or
White-petalled Lady’s Slippers just bursting forth from the earth,
perhaps four inches high. I have found them frequently in these bogs,
when full-grown, standing three feet tall, but the usual height is about
two feet; and in open meadow swamps often only eighteen inches, owing
to the crowded soil, choked with grasses and low shrubs. In about three
weeks these bogs would be gay with dainty Moccasin-Flowers.
In the upper part of this swamp, I found a rather quaking corner devoted
entirely to the deep green leaves and tall, white-bearded spikes of the
not common Buckbean (_Menyanthes trifoliata_), a distant cousin of the
Blue Fringed Gentian. I know of several colonies of this rare plant in
the bogs hereabout, where it grows plentifully, in its pet localities.
It is liable to grow ever undisturbed, I am sure, since it chooses such
dangerous swamps in which to flourish.
Thoreau mentions that Hodge the geologist once found at least an acre
of this species. He writes: “We reached Shad Pond, or Noliseemack, an
expansion of the river. Hodge, the assistant State Geologist, who passed
through this region on the 25th of June, 1837, says, ‘We pushed our boats
through an acre or more of buckbeans, which had taken root at the bottom,
and bloomed above the surface in the greatest profusion and beauty.’”[6]
After leaving this jungle,—which reminded me of the luxuriant vegetation
of tropical swamps,—I pushed onward, ever nearing the broad marsh-lands
of Etchowog, east of Pownal Pond, in the shadow of the Dome. A shaded
wood-road winds around the base of the hill, through an open gateway
into a thrifty, well-kept apple orchard. This adjoins the old Kimball
homestead, and I therefore designated these marshes Kimball Bogs. Out
through the orchard meadow I passed, crossing the dusty highway which
leads northward around the pond. There are several roads leading to
Bennington village; some are rough, some are narrow and hilly, while
others are broad and easy. The one to the left, called the Middle Road,
follows through Pownal Centre to the county seat of courts and justice.
By keeping to the right, one arrives at the same destination by the rough
but picturesque East Road, under the brow of the Green Mountains. A
direct route from Pownal Pond to Bennington is by way of the Hill Road,
which leads directly north between the other highways. Thus the region
is intersected from east to west by many roads running northward. I
invariably recommend the Hill Road to the traveller who enjoys beauty of
landscape. On this way, if he be a keen observer of nature, he will find
much pleasure.
Instead of going by the trodden way to Pownal Pond, I chose to follow
closely the windings of Ball Brook, which at this point of the road,
opposite Kimball’s barns, mingles with another mountain torrent that
comes down from the spring heads above Thompson’s Pond, under the
Majestic Dome. The main current of this stream continues with the bend
of the road, taking with it the volume of the water of Ball Brook as it
crosses the greater stream. The courses of both streams are unnatural,
having been removed, over one hundred years ago, from their original
channels in order to form a mill-pond for sawmill use. Originally, I am
told, a dense forest of pine trees occupied the hollow where now the
waves of Pownal Pond wash over the decaying stumps.
The natural lake bed lies in these broad, sphagnous meadows east of
Kimball’s homestead, winding around to the north, where now wave various
small shrubs and trees. Barber’s sawmill, which stands close by the
roadside, east of the pond to-day, is slowly crumbling away for want of
use. Water finds its level, and although forced to go by the roadside,
Ball Brook still seeks in part its old channels through the ancient
meadows of Kimball’s Farm, where the stream is silent and elusive, as it
glides among the tall, lush grasses. Walking along the borders of this
hidden brook, through the tangle mingled with daisies and buttercups,
I lost the stream entirely, only a line of gold marking its sleepy
wanderings,—for marsh marigolds were still plentiful here, ever following
the edges of the brook.
[Illustration: =The Fleur-de-Lis.= (_Iris verisicolor._)]
Hellebore grew over the swamp, and the tall grasses took on coarser forms
as I waded farther on, deeper and deeper into the sphagnous grave of the
ancient lake. At times it seemed so soft and spongy that I questioned
my safety, even doubting the possibility of a search party securing my
“embalmed heart,” if once I became fast in the mud, so I began to edge up
toward firmer ground and the rocky hills near by.
This was the most uncertain swamp I had ever traversed, and not quite
safe for one to wade through alone. It is reputed to have been at one
time the bed of a great lake, as evidenced by the terraced hillsides
about it. Its waters might still linger beneath the black-peat and forest
débris which support the trees and spongy sphagnum. However, a fence
closed off the most dangerous parts of the bog to keep back the cows from
the mire and “dead holes,” as the unfathomable places are designated by
the lads who penetrate these bogs for the marsh cranberries in the autumn.
I searched through this meadow for the Large Purple-Fringed Orchis
(_Habenaria grandiflora_), thinking perhaps I might find the leaves,
although I was somewhat too early to secure the flowers, since they are
not due until June 20th and later.
On striking out for the hillside path, I found many problems to solve.
It appeared impossible to gain a firm or safe footing in the sphagnum
and mud, so securing a fence board which had been hurled about the marsh
by the winds and storms, I slapped it down upon the soft earth and moss,
and walked its length of eight feet. Then quickly relaying it, while my
feet sank lower and lower in the moss, I hastened to pull out my muddy
foot-gear and walked the length of my bridge once more,—repeating this
perilous feat several times, until I had finally crossed the “dead hole”
and stood on _terra firma_ once more.
There is certainly no experience like being stuck in a bog to arouse
fearful forebodings. The discouraging effort to keep one foot above the
ground only to find the other sinking deeper is most terrifying, and
leads to hasty and excited movements which but increase the danger, and
may finally lodge both feet fast in the mud. In such a case the sight
of a board fence upon which an elbow may be rested is as welcome as a
sail to a ship-wrecked mariner. There is in truth much art and science
in walking safely through mud and sphagnum. One cannot saunter over the
surface, and meditate at ease, but one must be ever alert, elastic as a
rubber ball, and quick to feel a danger before it can be seen.
The fields and woods are a good deal like the books we read: the more
we become familiar with printed page or forest path, the oftener we
return to certain thoughts and trails that lead us back to scenes and
associations enjoyed before. I like to mark passages in books I love,
here and there, as I would blaze a tree to guide me to the haunt of a
cool stream or a rare flower’s hiding-place. Whenever I turn to such
passages, I find that time and season have expanded some new thought in
my mind, even as they have developed the buds to full-grown flowers since
my first journey through the wood.
There is a beautiful cold spring under the hill near the swamps of
Etchowog. I have known of it all my life, and were I to visit this region
every day for months, I should invariably be drawn unconsciously to
this fountain. It is here that I quench my thirst and rest after wading
through the neighboring swamps. I have turned many stones here in the
past, and lifted the dead leaves from the choking throat of the spring.
I have gathered the sundew growing in the moss fringing the banks; and
in the sweet solitude and peace I have dreamed many dreams, inextricably
mingled with the music of the stream.
[Illustration: =The Fountain of Arethusa, near the Bogs of Etchowog,
Pownal, Vermont.=
“If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life. Think of
a man swinging dumb-bells for his health, when those springs are bubbling
up in far-off pastures unsought by him!”—THOREAU.]
To-day I sought this spring to rest. I bathed my face and combed my
hair over Nature’s own mirror, after taking a generous draught from the
sparkling water. It bubbles and gushes continuously from under the rocky
hillside, bringing sand and delicate-hued pebbles to scatter in the
bottom of its bowl the year round. I rested here a full hour, and rinsed
the mud off my boots.
From here it is but a short walk to Barber’s Mill at the foot of Pownal
Pond. Alders, willows, shad-bushes and pink azaleas, small white birches,
tamaracks, pines, and beautiful swamp or soft maples fill the broad
expanse of marsh-land to the right; while the rocky, burnt-over, and
blackened hillside rises up to the left. I was tempted into the deeper
underbrush, but proceeded very slowly, as the treacherous bog was so
spongy with sphagnum that I would often sink from twelve to fifteen
inches into its soft, pink depths. But here I felt secure, since there
were many fallen trees and growing saplings to which I could hold and
cling, in case I stepped into a “dead hole.”
Here, half buried in the moss, I found hundreds of crimson-veined Pitcher
Plants, or Side-Saddle Flowers (_Sarracenia purpurea_), which bear
olive-green, purple-veined, vase-like leaves that hold rain and dew.
Often the species varies in color, and its absolute greenish-yellow with
lighter green veinings. Many of the larger pitchers hold fully a tumbler
of fluid. Their brilliant-hued brims are edged with crimson ridges,
delicately coated with honey, thus enticing flies and moths to drink from
the nectar beyond the brim. The more common prisoners are small flies
and moths, but one day I found two dozen snails captive in the larger
leaves of an ancient plant, for if once within, there is no escape even
for snails. Consequently the Pitcher Plants—locally called St. Jacob’s
Dippers and Dumb Watches by the children—are considered carnivorous
plants, since they are flesh-eating by nature. This is also true of the
small Round-leaved Sundew (_Drosera rotundifolia_).
These plants are traps that not only cunningly entice, but actually
entrap and slowly devour their victims. Sundew delights in being fed
beefsteak, and Professor Bailey cites Darwin’s experiment of feeding them
steak, which “they accepted as readily as an insect.”[7] The Sundew is
plentiful in these mossy bogs. It has red and white, dewy, bristling,
round leaves, with long petioles spreading in a tuft. When a small fly or
ant touches these sticky bristles or tentacles on the upper face of the
leaf, the points of the outer row slowly turn inward, holding their prey
closely until it is dead.
[Illustration: =Round-Leaved Sundew.= (_Drosera rotundifolia._)]
Like the enticing honey of the Pitcher Plant, the viscid fluid of the
Sundew attracts the flies, and, once alighted upon it, they become
entangled and doomed to certain death. After drawing the juices from
their victim or bits of steak, they relax and slowly regain their normal
positions. The glands of these leaves send out drops of a clean, sticky
fluid which glitter like dew drops in the sunlight. The plant sends up
a short spike of insignificant, whitish-green, bud-like flowers, which
are said to open briefly one by one in their turn, each morning in the
sunshine, till the whole spike has unfolded. Each flower turns brown and
fades before the successive bud unfolds, so that there is never more than
one full-grown flower to be seen at a time. This is not the case with
the flowers of the Pitcher Plant. I found many crimson, ball-like buds
sleeping tucked up in their mossy beds. They would be in their prime in a
week or ten days.
Here I discovered some fine specimens of the Pink Moccasin-Flower, and
I was just about to pluck one, when behold—stretching at full length,
basking in the sunshine on one of those sphagnous stump mounds, lay a
snake, very near the coveted blossom. He may have been black or he may
have been checkered or variegated and even charming and beautiful to
the snake-hunter, but to the orchid-hunter he was not a prize worthy of
a place in the vasculum. I did not wait to study or designate him or
count his diamonds, but softly stole away, leaving him still cunningly
sleeping, in waiting for prey, beside that gorgeous Moccasin-Flower.
I now regarded with suspicion all the holes in the soft mounds of moss,
as the possible homes of snakes, that might object to visitors in their
Eden. Immense ant-hills were numerous, and the occupants may have
afforded food for Satan’s prototype in his idle hours. Now and then the
drum of a frightened partridge, giving her alarum, assured me that her
brood of chickens was hidden under the leaves and logs not far distant.
It is very probable that snakes in these bogs devour small birds and
frogs, and lie in wait for them, as I found the one that I had seen this
morning.
Before continuing my search, I secured a hardwood staff, feeling safer
with a cudgel of some kind in my hand, in case I met Satan face to face.
In my tussle to sever the birch limb from the green tree, I snapped off
all the Venus Slippers that I had actually gathered here. I was therefore
no richer in actual specimens upon my departure from the swamp than when
I entered it; but I carried away memories of that vast solitude and
slumbering desolation where foot of man, I dare say, has seldom if ever
been.
[Illustration: =The Carnivorous Plants, commonly called Pitcher Plants,
and Dumb Watches.= (_Sarracenia purpurea._)
“_What’s this I hear_
_About the new carnivora?_
_Can little plants_
_Eats bugs and ants_
_And gnats and flies?—_
_A sort of retrograding_
_Surely the fare_
_Of flowers is air,_
_Or sunshine sweet;_
_They shouldn’t eat,_
_Or do aught so degrading._”
ANONYMOUS.]
Now well out of this swamp, I found myself on the edge of an apple
orchard, filled with rosy bloom and the fragrance of happy May. A
newly planted garden bore witness to human life, and the long rows of
potato-hills spoke of industry. Passing through the gate, I entered
the East Pownal Road near the mill, and walking down the bank to the
right, just north of the mill, where cobblestones had been dumped from
the fields, I picked my way into the open Bogs of Etchowog, which lie
directly east of the pond.
I wandered up and down through this swamp, finding hundreds of Pitcher
Plants, which had begun to nod their crimson buds. Clusters of the Showy
Lady’s Slippers were springing up on the higher, drier mounds among the
lily leaves of _Clintonia borealis_ and Dog’s Tooth. Fleur-de-lis grew
everywhere, while the Poison Ivy flaunted its three-fingered palm on
every side. Poison Sumach or Poison Dogwood, sometimes known as Poison
Elder, grows luxuriantly in this swamp, and susceptible people have been
poisoned merely by passing above along the roadside. By wearing high
hunting-boots and rubber or chamois gloves, however, I am perfectly safe
in such places. In fact, I never think of these plants as poisonous
when brushing through the tangles of bushes and blossoming vines. These
species of _Rhus_ are in blossom most of the summer. The juice of the
plant is resinous, and the fruit consists of white or dun-colored berries.
Going back to the roadside to rest, I took out my color-box and attempted
to sketch the swamp I had just left. Eastward, rising boldly in the
background, towered the Majestic Dome against the sky. In the middle
distance, a long line of alders and willow shrubs blended softly into
the blues, here and there dashed with the crimson and gold swamp-maple
buds; while still nearer, amid the low, grassy reeds and poison sumachs
of the wet swamp, three tall, stately pines reared their shaggy green
forms against the dark blue tones of the mountains, lending strength and
balance to the scene.
My day nearly spent, I packed away my colors, and started on my return
trip, leaving the mill at the bend of the road at three o’clock. Just
above the Kimball Farm, I came to a pent-road leading through the
pastures to Ball Brook Farm, where I must go to get my Moccasin-Flowers,
left hidden in the stream. I found them as fresh and fragrant as if just
gathered.
The walking was good, so I exchanged my high, heavy boots for low shoes,
which were much more comfortable for dry paths and climbing hillside
roads.
Going directly up through the cow-pastures along the border of the Glen
of Comus, I came upon a colony of Pink Moccasin-Flowers, growing on a
sloping hillside under low-spreading pines and birches. Although the
spot was shaded, many flowers were unfolding, but they were not so deep
in color as time and sunshine would paint them. I counted at least two
hundred buds and blossoms, thinking what a feast for the eyes I should
have another day, when they were in their prime.
Later, as I turned into the Centre Road, I met Lorenna, one of the school
children in District Fourteen. She, too, had her hands full of flowers. I
asked her to keep a lookout for strange, small Moccasin-Flowers, hoping
thereby that she might find the rare little Ram’s-Head (_Cypripedium
arietinum_), for which I have so hopefully searched these woods in
vain. I had found thus far all the representative species of the
Moccasin-Flowers of this State, save the rarer Ram’s-Head.
[Illustration: =The Bogs of Etchowog, Showing the Dome in the Distance,
Pownal, Vermont.=
“There are not only stately pines, but fragile flowers, like the
orchises, commonly described as too delicate for cultivation, which
derive their nutriment from the crudest mass of peat. These remind us,
that, not only for strength, but for beauty, the poet must, from time
to time, travel the logger’s path and the Indian’s trail ... far in the
recesses of the wilderness.”—THOREAU.]
The name Ram’s-Head arose from the resemblance of this flower to that
of a sheep’s or ram’s head, the conical or pouched-shaped shoe serving
in certain positions to remind the early Canadian children of the noses
of frisky lambs’ heads, while the twistings of both sepals and petals
answered for the ram’s horns. This rare species was first collected
in Canada near Montreal before 1808. In that year it was transplanted
to English gardens by Messrs. Chandler and Buckingham, where they
had opportunity to study it closely. For some time it was known as
Chandler’s _Cypripedium_. Finally, Mr. Robert Brown of England published
a description of North American Orchids in Aiton’s _Catalogue of Plants_,
in 1813, and he must have learned what the children first named it
in Canada and Vermont, for he gave it the Latin name, _Cypripedium
arietinum_, which it has ever since borne in the science. _Arietinum_
signifies shaped like a ram’s head, and so one readily observes how the
common names of plants suggest to the botanist the origin of the strange
Latin names, which are in one sense but the explanations of the common
names.
I told Lorenna the story of this stray lamb, and she was as eager to find
its trail as I was. The plant is shy at best, the flowers being of the
most inconspicuous purple and white shades, found in cedar swamps and on
the drier hillsides in mixed wood, of pine, chestnut, and birch. Truth to
tell, I was not familiar with the appearance of the plant, nor did I know
at what date to search for the blossoms.
After leaving Lorenna, I followed the road homeward, reaching Mount
Œta at six o’clock, somewhat dusty and ragged and tired. Old Bonny and
the buggy were now suggested as assistants in my trips, when the folk
observed my load of herbs and flowers. But bog-trotting in a buggy is
certainly beyond the limits of my imagination. It did, however, at that
tired moment seem a favorable project, for Bonny and the buggy could wait
for me by the roadside while I plunged into the marshes to secure my
treasures.
It is true, as Thoreau writes: “we are but faint-hearted crusaders,
even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending
enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at
evening to the old hearth-side, from which we set out. Half the walk is
but retracing our steps.”[8]
III
The Haunts of the Ram’s-Head Moccasin-Flowers
I call the old time back: I bring my lay
In tender memory of the summer day
When, where our native river lapsed away,
We dreamed it over, while the thrushes made
Songs of their own, and the great pine-trees laid
On warm noonlights the masses of their shade.
WHITTIER, _Mabel Martin_.
The following morning, after my strenuous excursion through the swamps
of Etchowog, I was somewhat tired and stiffened, but still ready for a
journey which must be made to North Adams, a distance of ten miles from
Mount Œta. As it was Saturday, Lorenna’s mother would soon be passing
over the hill on her way to that city, with butter and eggs, so I decided
to accompany her. Lorenna’s mother, formerly a teacher in District
Fourteen in the neighborhood, had always considered my propensity for
tramping through these bogs and woodlands, searching for flowers, as
rather “queer.” This habit, coupled with my fondness for the poets, led
her to believe I had sustained some great sorrow,—perhaps the loss of a
lover,—and in those early days she invariably eyed me closely through
her green goggles as I met her on the road. My evident annoyance and
embarrassment under this scrutiny probably confirmed her suspicions.
Nevertheless, she so far forgot her interest in this subject as to tell
me to-day that Lorenna, on her way home with the cows the night previous,
had found one of the strangest little flowers. None of them had ever
seen the blossom before, nor did they know its name. She felt sure,
however, that it belonged to the Nervine Family,—as they locally call
the Moccasin-Flowers in many New England towns,—from the leaves and the
little shoe-shaped flower.
That evening, as soon as the sun sank in the west, and the cool hours of
twilight came, I sought Lorenna’s house in the vale below Mount Œta. As
I sauntered through the fields, the distant sounds of Pownal’s church
bells and the barking of dogs and the rolling wheels of the home-coming
farmers’ wagons arose from the valley.
Under my arm I had tucked Baldwin’s _Orchids of New England_, a book
which I had drawn from the North Adams Library, with permission to keep
it as long as I desired, the calls for such books being very infrequent.
This work contains many illustrations of species of orchids found in the
New England States, and more especially in Vermont, the author having
made his excursions and collections of species near Burlington, in the
northwestern portion of the State. Among the sketches is one of the
Ram’s-Head Cypripedium,[9] the species having been collected by him in
cedar wood, in the neighborhood of Burlington, where he reports a colony
of twenty plants.[10]
Arriving at Lorenna’s home, my hopes were realized, and I was introduced
to the first fresh specimen I had ever seen of the _Cypripedium
arietinum_. Later I was shown the spot where the flower grew. I was
hoping to find several plants, but was disappointed. I studied the soil
and locality, however, which gave me the clue for fresh trails. We had
followed a winding wood-road that led from the Centre Road into the deep
pine forests on the Amidon Farm, where the ground was strewn with piny
needles and glittering with the Stars-of-Bethlehem, Goldthread blossoms,
and the Painted Wake Robins. The broken stem that had borne the conical
shoe stood on a rocky hillside, at the base of a chestnut tree. A dwarfed
pine seedling was also struggling to grow in the hard soil, among the
fibrous roots of the Ram’s-Head. The two had probably taken root there
at the same time. We marked the spot, and sheltered the plant from the
browsings of cows, by planting dead twigs near it.
Before the evening was ended, Lorenna’s mother had discovered that others
besides myself must have made excursions afield and abog for flowers
and herbs, and no doubt at some time in their lives must have also
read poetry and made sketches. She became very much in earnest over a
text-book on botany, and desired Lorenna to have a child’s manual.
Baldwin writes of the Ram’s-Head Cypripedium: “In Northern New England,
one is sometimes fortunate enough to gather with the Yellow Lady’s
Slippers, especially with the dwarf species, the Ram’s-Head Lady’s
Slipper (_Cypripedium arietinum_), the rarest species North America
produces, and to me, the most attractive.”[11]
The flower is peculiarly conical in shape and slightly fragrant. Baldwin
was the first botanist to discover a “musk-like odor” to the roots of
this plant, which I also have observed. The structure of this species
differs from all other known Cypripediums by producing six distinct parts
to its perianth, all the sepals being free to the base. There is in
the regular structure of Cypripediums a union of the two lower sepals,
usually showing a bifid condition at the apex, when not perfectly united,
as shown, if closely studied, in some of the accompanying illustrations.
The brown-pink sepals of the Ram’s-Head are all free, and, twisting
gracefully, remind one of the horns of a sheep’s or ram’s head, while
the apex of the labellum serves for the nose. The labellum is of a dull
purplish color, mottled or checked with white veins upon the crest of
the shoe. The apex or toe is of a dull brownish green, the orifice of
the labellum is triangular, filled with downy white hairs, and not large
enough to admit a baby’s finger-tip. The flower, however, varies, as does
also the plant, in size, according to the soil and the age of plant,
those found in damp cedar swamps being a foot or more in height, adorned
with large flowers, while those along the hillsides are from six to ten
inches high.
[Illustration: =The Ram’s-Head Lady’s Slipper.= (_Cypripedium arietinum._)
In different positions this flower suggests a ram’s head.]
This rare orchid is seldom, if ever, collected by botanists. It is one
of the smallest Moccasin-Flowers found in the Northern Atlantic Region.
The pigmy of the genus is _Cypripedium fasciculatum_, found under young
_Conifers_ in open woods in the swamp regions of northern California,
along the Pacific slope, exclusively west of the Continental Divide. The
_Cypripedia_ found in the Pacific Region are very different from those
of the Atlantic, _Cypripedium Californicum_, for instance, producing
a simple raceme bearing from three to twelve flowers, all emerging
from the axils of leafy bracts, the stem often growing four feet high.
The shoe-shaped flowers resemble miniature blossoms of our eastern
_Cypripedium reginæ_ in color and structure of sepals and petals.
The Ram’s-Head Cypripedium is certainly one of the rarest species on the
continent, and appears to be more plentiful, if this word can be used of
so scarce a flower, in the State of Vermont than in any other region that
has been reported in its continental range. It grows in low, damp marl
and peat swamps.
IV
The Stolen Moccasins
Woodlands, green and gay with dew,
Here, to-day, I pledge anew
All the love I gave to you.
ALICE CARY, _A Lesson_.
Whether the season is premature or backward, the Moccasin-Flowers always
appear at the same date, along with the Painted and Crimson Trilliums, in
the warm Glen of Comus. I am sure of finding these flowers unfolding, the
week previous to Decoration Day, from the 20th to the 28th of May.
On the 30th of May, four days after I had discovered the famous two
hundred Pink Moccasin buds on the hillside above the Glen of Comus, I
imagined now that they must be in full array, wearing the rich hues of
magenta and all the delicate tints of green, white, and pink. When once
fully unfolded they change color very rapidly. Late in the afternoon I
entered the edge of the Swamp of Oracles in District Fourteen, north of
the schoolhouse. My hound was my sole companion, and I heard him in the
distance making friends with children, whose voices came echoing from
the direction of my fairy-land of Moccasins. A foreboding that all its
beauty had been plundered took possession of me, for I knew that children
are instinctively selfish about flowers, and pluck every blossom they
see, even though they may throw them away afterward.
I picked my way carefully through the deeper swamp, around in the
opposite direction, avoiding thus the children whom I heard approaching
by way of the path, their arms laden, no doubt, with the blossoms I
sought a sight of. Later my worst surmise was confirmed. Not one Moccasin
hung on its stem to tell the tale of the invasion. Here and there were
strewn bruised leaves and stemless blossoms, prostrate on the hillside.
I was sorely disappointed, and I exclaimed aloud to the echoing wood
that it was a sin,—this stealing all the flowers and leaving none to
mature and develop their seed pods for the continuance of the species
to be enjoyed by future generations. “And if I ever get hold of these
youngsters,” I cried, “I’ll tell them why!”
The “youngsters” happened to be cousins of mine who had caught the orchid
mania from me, and what to them had always appeared ordinary Indian
Moccasins, or Lady’s Slippers, had now an added value and charm, since
they were understood to belong to the Orchid Family. The very hint that I
valued them caused strife among these children, eager to show me how many
they also could gather in a day. As such treasures, they gathered them,
hurrying homeward to tell me how many rare and beautiful orchids they had
found. They wondered if I had been near the jungle, as they saw Major,
my hound, during the afternoon. I admired their blossoms, now drooping
and wilted and sadly bruised, but I never told them just where I had
been, nor what I had missed. I had not the actual courage to scold them,
since I had set the example for them, but although I find many flowers, I
gather at random for mere pleasure very few. Indeed, there is no pleasure
in making desolate these choice and hidden retreats of Nature.
There are laws protecting the deer in the Green Mountains and the brook
trout in their spawning season, but as yet there is no legal or moral
protection to shield the flowering and fruiting season of rare flowers,
especially orchids, so scarce in northern New England. Some of our
orchids are already so rare, that in localities where, only a few years
ago, I found them abundant, to-day hardly a trace of them remains. They
have suffered from school children and commerce alike. People seek them
selfishly for pleasure and study, while the drug trade demands many
roots, and places fair value upon them as an inducement to collectors.
These roots are used for infusions, tinctures, and ointments,—a primitive
Indian custom and one which, if continued on the present scale, must in
time necessarily cease, through extinction of the rarer and most showy
species of our native orchids.
The country folk know the Lady’s Slippers of genus _Cypripedium_ as
the Nervine Family, valuing them as a nerve tonic. I have met a man
who makes a business of following trout streams, fishing and hunting
through the swamps, searching for frogs, and rare roots and herbs in
their season. He finds ready market for Ginseng, American Ipecacuanha,
Hellebore, or Indian Poke, from which is obtained a powerful cardiac
depressent,—_Veratrum viride_, and species of _Cypripedium_ also produce
our native drug American valerian, which takes the place of the European
drug, procured from _Valerian officinalis_. Snakeroot, Dogwood, and
various other plants afford excellent tonics. One can readily understand,
as Thomas Wentworth Higginson remarks, “that many of our rarest flowers
(in the vicinity of Boston) are being chased into the very recesses
of the Green and White Mountains. The relics of the Indian tribes are
supported by the Legislature at Martha’s Vineyard, while these precursors
of the Indians are dying unfriended away.”[12]
Where years ago the swamps were fairly rose-purple with waving blossoms
of the Grass Pink (_Limodorum tuberosum_) and Rose Pogonia or Snake-Mouth
(_Pogonia ophioglossoides_), this year I found so few that I could
readily count them. I discovered the possible secret of this extinction
in the fact that a native of Etchowog was offered by some florist or
gardener fifty cents a bulb or plant for all the specimens he could
secure. This was an inducement for the vandal, but Nature cannot restore
her species as fast as man can uproot them and devastate their haunts.
Whether this is the true cause of extinction of these species in Pownal
swamps I cannot ascertain beyond this inference; however, I am convinced
that a small fortune has disappeared, estimated on the lost plants at
fifty cents each.
Nearly all of the public schools are instructing the children in
drawing,—teaching them to study the wild flowers as they find each in its
season. Educators in all nature study urge the children to bring fresh
specimens, and thus unconsciously encourage the extinction of the rare
species of plant life in general. The children of each district school
thus hunting over a limited area, soon, with childish strife, collect
all the first and fairest flowers in their path. By the close study
necessary, however, for the child to produce a drawing of the flower and
its structural parts, a valuable lesson may in time be learned.
The story of fertilization, the necessity of the flower’s producing seeds
in order to continue its successive generations, will not be forgotten by
the true nature student. But if the teacher were able to designate the
rarer plants of her district, and teach her children the fatal results of
continually gathering their flowers, she might awaken in the minds of the
young people a higher reverence for the blossoms themselves, and scruples
against depriving generations of children to come of their beauty.
[Illustration: =The Pink Moccasin-Flower.= (_Cypripedium acaule._)
This is the only two-leaved _Cypripedium_ found in the Atlantic region.
It is closely allied with _Cypripedium guttatum_ of Alaska and with
_Cypripedium fasciculatum_ of the Pacific slope. It is the most common
species of this genus.]
There is hardly a child in the first grade in our schools who cannot tell
the story of the bee and the Moccasin-Flower, and why the wonderful lines
and dots of pink and gold are inside the downy shoe, instead of making
the outside the more showy.
The first Moccasin-Flower which I found in Aurora’s Bog in North Adams I
gave to Ray, a little lad of my acquaintance, and he happily and proudly
carried it to his teacher. When he came home, he could tell me that all
these inner decorations of pink and gold were dewy-tipped with sweets,
and were called “Honey Guides,” just to invite bees within. And that
although Master Bee goes through the front door of the Moccasin cottage,
he somehow finds it locked when he wishes to escape, so in his excitement
has to squeeze through the small back door next to the pollen-masses.
He carries forth some of the pollen, and thus helps to fertilize the
next blossom of this species, as he enters and rubs off the grains of
pollen on the adhesive lobes of the viscid stigma. Insects thus are not
permitted to rob the flowers of nectar and pollen without making a return
for the food which the flower yields them.
Were it not for the bees and moths and various flies, the seeds of
orchids would not mature, for it is a generally accepted fact that nearly
all species of this family, wherever found growing, depend upon insect
aid for fertilization and cross-fertilization. With the exception of one
or two North American species of genus _Habenaria_, all other native
species are aided by insects. These two species, _Habenaria hyperborea_
and _Habenaria clavellata_, were, according to both Gray and Darwin,
supposed regularly to fertilize themselves without aid of insects.
As the spikes of the Tall Green Orchis (_Habenaria hyperborea_) are
frequent in the Pownal swamps, in company with the Showy Lady’s Slipper,
I became interested in this plant, so independent of Master Bee or Moth.
Professor Asa Gray, in various papers on fertilization of our native
orchids, has said that they were all arranged for fertilization
by the aid of insects, and that very few were capable of unaided
self-fertilization. He tested several species, and proved that it might
occur by accident, but in general his two self-fertilized species of
_Habenaria_ were still an unsolved problem, as later developments have
proven in the case of his supposed self-fertilized species, _Habenaria
hyperborea_, which he asserted “habitually fertilized itself.” At least
this species, although it may be fully equipped for self-fertilization,
has been reported quite recently to be visited and fertilized by
mosquitoes, proving that not in all instances is it found “habitually
fertilizing” itself.[13]
In August, 1899, Professor C. A. Crandall, of the Agricultural College of
Colorado, with a party of tourists camped on Medicine Bow Range, in that
State, at an altitude of 10,200 feet, and observed abnormally developed
mosquitoes bearing pollen-grains, which resembled those of _Habenaria
hyperborea_; and so they proved to be, by subsequent experiments with
specimens of this orchis gathered from a bog near by their camp.[14]
Another species of this genus, which is almost identical with the Tall
Green Habenaria just mentioned, differs from it by bearing fragrant
white flowers not adjusted for self-fertilization. This beautiful plant,
_Habenaria dilatata_, grows sparingly in the choice haunts of the deeper
Bogs of Etchowog, seeking frequently the pools near cold springs, and
attracting numerous flies and moths by its rich perfumes, which one
scents long before he discovers the flowers themselves.
Darwin mentions ten self-fertilized species of orchids for the whole
world, and adds to that list ten more which were partially so, in case
the proper insects failed to visit these plants in season.
He again asserts: “In my examination of orchids, hardly any fact has
struck me so much as the endless diversities of the structure,—the
prodigality of resources,—for gaining the very same end, namely, the
fertilization of one flower by pollen from another plant. This fact is to
a large extent intelligible on the principle of natural selection.”[15]
Of the self-fertile species, Darwin remarks: “It deserves especial
attention that the flowers of all self-fertile species still retain
various structures which, it is impossible to doubt, are not adapted for
insuring cross-fertilization, though they are now rarely or never brought
into play. We may therefore conclude that all these plants are descended
from species or varieties which were formerly fertilized by insect
aid.”[16]
Darwin believed that, “bearing also in mind the larger number of species
in many parts of the world which from this same cause are seldom
impregnated, we are led to believe that the self-fertilized plants
formerly depended on the visits of insects for their fertilization, and
that, from such visits failing, they did not yield a sufficiency of seed
and were verging towards extinction. Under these circumstances, it is
probable that they were gradually modified, so as to become more or less
completely self-fertile; for it would manifestly be more advantageous
to a plant to produce self-fertilized seeds rather than none at all or
extremely few seeds.”[17]
Darwin questions: “Whether any species which is now never
cross-fertilized will be able to resist the evil effects of
long-continued self-fertilization, so as to survive for as long an
average period as the other species of the same genera which are
habitually cross-fertilized, cannot of course be told.... It is indeed
possible that these self-fertile species may revert in the course of time
to what was undoubtedly their pristine condition, and in this case their
various adaptations for cross-fertilization would be again brought into
action.”[18]
Indeed, the more this great scientist studied these strange flowers,
the more he became impressed, and “with ever-increasing force, that the
contrivances and beautiful adaptations slowly acquired through each
part occasionally varying in a slight degree but in many ways, with the
preservation of those variations which were beneficial to the organism
under complex and ever-varying conditions of life, transcend in an
incomparable manner the contrivances and adaptations which the most
fertile imagination of man could invent.”[19]
[Illustration: =The Tall White Northern Orchis= (_Habenaria dilatata_),
=Near Arethusa’s Spring, Bogs of Etchowog, Pownal, Vermont.=]
The extinction of species of orchids is due to causes inharmonious
with Nature, therefore, more than to the failure of the insects in
fertilization and cross-fertilization. Man and his bush-whack and
bog-hoe are doing more toward the extinction of our rarer species of all
plant-life in their continental range than any other natural element, in
the swampy, mountainous districts of the East, as well as in the open
swells on the prairies of the West.
The late Grant Allen expressed regret that the native Yellow Lady’s
Slipper of England, _Cypripedium calceolus_, “lingers in but two places,”
one of those stations being on “a single estate in Durham, where it is as
carefully preserved by its owner as if it were pheasants or fallow-deer.”
The wind, rains, and flowing streams, the birds, as well as migration and
immigration of the nations over the world, are ever unconscious bearers
of the seeds of our rare flowers and common dooryard weeds; yet for the
rarer species Nature is indebted to the insects for the important process
of cross-fertilization.
In country towns of New England, where summer resorts for tourists are
numerous, one finds youthful venders selling the roots of the Orchid
Family to “lovers of flowers,” and thus even the lovers of Nature aid in
the extinction of the treasures and wealth of her soil.
Species of _Cypripedium_ are indeed the most gorgeous among our native
orchids, and will be among the first of the family to become extinct,
since they do not reproduce seedlings abundantly, even in their most
choice haunts.
V
The Queen of the Indian Moccasin-Flowers
The rounded world is fair to see,
Nine times folded in mystery;
Though baffled seers cannot impart
The secret of its laboring heart,
Throb thine with Nature’s throbbing breast,
And all is clear from east to west.
EMERSON, _Nature_.
Between May 30th and June 8th, I made short excursions to the Bog of
Oracles above the Glen of Comus. On the latter date I found my first
blossoms of the season, of the Showy Queen of the Moccasin-Flowers
(_Cypripedium reginæ_), the white sepals and petals standing fully
unfurled, but still lacking the rich magenta-pink on the crest of the
slippers which another week’s time would give them. One feature this
season, among these plants, was the unusual number of two buds on a
single scape. While a single blossom is generally found on a stalk, I
discovered now that nearly every other stem bore two buds.
At the same time and in the same place, along the edges of decaying logs
on the borders of Ball Brook, grew the spikes of the Tall Green Orchis
(_Habenaria hyperborea_). Its greenish-yellow color is conspicuously
different from the tones of its distant relative, the showy,
white-petaled queen of this swamp. Another spike similar to that of the
Tall Green Orchis, but short and smaller in every way, stood near. It was
not so tall and coarse as its sister species, and may have been a stray
specimen of the Tall White Habenaria (_Habenaria dilatata_). These two
species are peculiar in appearance, and many inexperienced bog-hunters
would pass them by as weeds, and homely weeds at that.
Upon closer scrutiny, the peculiar twisted seed-pods of these flowers
suggest a rarity. The name _Habenaria_ signifies “a rein or thong,”
derived from the shape of the labellum in some species of this genus.
They are often also called “Rein-Orchises.”
On June 10th I drove into the Chalk Pond region, on the “Witch Hollow,”
or Gulf Road leading to the Centre-of-the-Town; and hitching old Bonny,
took a circle around the peat and marl meadows, searching for signs of
the Showy Orchis (_Orchis spectabilis_), a species of a sister genus of
Habenaria. The Showy Orchis is due here about May 25th, the date on which
the early Moccasin-Flowers awaken.
Four species of this genus unfold upon almost the same day. The
Ram’s-Head Cypripedium should bloom first, according to general reports
of botanists, the Pink Acaule immediately follows, and the Larger Yellow
Moccasins, and, at the same time, the Small Yellow Fragrant Slippers
unlace their beautiful twisting petals. The Showy Orchis is supposed to
be the first orchid of the spring to blossom in New England.
[Illustration: =The Showy Orchis.= (_Orchis spectabilis._)
The first orchid of the spring, found near the rocky borders of
Thompson’s Brook, East Pownal, Vermont.]
I discovered nothing in the Chalk Pond meadows, however, save that it
was one of the most charming little corners in the town, showing deep
erosions about its terraced basin, proving that the ice-currents of the
past flowed through these gulfs with terrible force.
I have found the Large Yellow Moccasin-Flower growing in close
relationship with the dwarf fragrant species (_Cypripedium parviflorum_),
in the Swamp of Oracles, in District Fourteen, about May 25th; while
they appear later in the upland woods,—from June 6th until June 25th.
They grow, as will be observed, along high, rocky hillsides as well
as in damp, sphagnous marshes. The upland species are often found in
open clearings on hillsides, among the dead brushwood heaps, where grow
the Maiden-Hair and Christmas Ferns. Often they are in full sight, but
sometimes they are hidden under small hazel-nut bushes, amid sapling
white birches.
There seem to be three different forms of the Yellow Cypripediums,
although there are but _two_ accepted distinct North American
species north of Mexico; these appear also to intergrade frequently.
Close association of habitat has probably something to do with this
cross-fertilization of the two species.
Finding the two marsh plants, _Cypripedium hirsutum_ and _Cypripedium
parviflorum_, growing side by side in the Swamp of Oracles, I observed
a marked intergrading,—the larger species, _Cypripedium hirsutum_,
producing variegated sepals and petals, or possibly now and then a
brown-pink petal or sepal, imitating the type species of the smaller
Moccasin-Flower. Both species were fragrant in a slight degree,
_Cypripedium parviflorum_ being, of course, the more fragrant of the two.
There is an European Yellow Cypripedium (_Cypripedium calceolus_)
which is almost identical with the smaller species of North America,
_Cypripedium parviflorum_. As early as 1760, _Cypripedium calceolus_
was described and illustrated in color in Philip Miller’s _Figures of
Plants_. Linnæus, 1740, gave the European yellow species the present
generic and specific designation. Any history relating to that species
of Lady’s Slipper, as it was first known in Europe by Dodoens as early
as 1616 under the title of _Calceolus Marianus_, will also pertain to
the history of the two closely allied Yellow Cypripediums found in North
America.
The common English name “Lady’s Slipper” arose from the Latin _Marianus_,
referring to “Our Lady,” the Virgin Mary, while _Calceolus_ is the
Latin for _shoe_ or slipper. Linnæus, however, in 1740, being a devout
Lutheran, objected to this species being dedicated to the Mother of
Christ, and re-established the custom of dedicating the names of flowers
to gods and goddesses of classical mythology known before Christ. The
origin of the generic name _Cypripedium_ is from the two Greek words
Κύπρις, an ancient name for Venus, and πόδιον, a _sock_, _buskin_, or
slipper.
Venus, in classical literature, was also known as “Our Lady,” the “Divine
Mother” of the Romans, so that the common name has never in reality
changed since 1616, when it was first applied to these shoe-shaped
flowers of Europe, in honor of Mary, “Our Lady,” the “Divine Mother” of
all nations.
The Algonquin Indians, in their forests of Northeastern North America,
saw this same shoe-shape resemblance in these flowers, and called them
_Mawcahsun_ or _Makkasin-Flowers_, since they reminded them of little
Indian Moccasins. Thus arose the common name Indian Moccasin-Flowers
for all our native species of Cypripedium. Lady’s Slipper is distinctly
of European origin, while Moccasin-Flower is most appropriately
American, since this name was given by the first inhabitants of our
shores, as it were, in mythological days. May the name of the Indian’s
Moccasin-Flower pass down through the coming centuries in honor of a race
that will disappear long before these flowers, which they christened so
appropriately.
I have never thus far found the Dwarf Fragrant Moccasin-Flower, an upland
flower, which Higginson describes as growing on the “Rattlesnake Ledge”
on “Tatessit Hill,”[20] in the neighborhood of Boston. The larger yellow
species, _Cypripedium hirsutum_, grows in the Hoosac Valley high on the
steep sides of the Domelet, while the smaller species seeks the deepest
parts of the Swamp of Oracles and Aurora’s Bog. I have collected it also
in damp, marshy woods in Mosholu, near New York City.
The Large Yellow Moccasin-Flower seems, of the two yellow species, the
more generally distributed over the continent, although most botanists
state that the smaller species is the commoner. The dwarf yellow species
is certainly the rarer plant in New England. In the Hoosac Valley,
particularly in Pownal swamps, it is quite as rare as the Ram’s-Head
Cypripedium. I have discovered only one swamp here where it grows.
It will be of interest to make note of two species of our Eastern
Cypripediums, which extend nearly to the Arctic Circle northward, as
well as adjusting themselves southward near the Tropic of Cancer. One
of these species is the Large Yellow Moccasin-Flower, reported as found
associated with the Pink Acaule, in latitude 54° to 60° North, by Dr.
John Richardson on Captain Franklin’s journey to the Arctic lands in
1823.[21]
Dr. F. Kurtz, in an Arctic Expedition in 1882, collected the large yellow
species, _Cypripedium hirsutum_[22] of the Atlantic Region, as well as
_Cypripedium passerinum_, which is endemic only to the Northern Pacific
Region. _Cypripedium hirsutum_ also extends from New England westward
much farther than the pink species, _Cypripedium acaule_. The dwarf
yellow, _Cypripedium parviflorum_, closely follows the larger yellow
species both southward and westward, but according to the stations
reported to the author for the continent, it cannot be said to have the
broader range of the two species.
[Illustration: =The Small Yellow Fragrant Moccasin-Flower.= (_Cypripedium
parviflorum._)
The only really fragrant _Cypripedium_ of the Atlantic region, closely
allied with _Cypripedium Montanum_—the Fragrant White Lady’s Slipper
of the Pacific slope. The plate shows the undulating sepals and petals
as well as their rich brown-pink coloring. The two lower sepals are
imperfectly united and are bifid at the apex. This species is almost
identical with the European species _Cypripedium calceolus_,—the first
_Cypripedium_ described by Linnæus in 1740-1753.]
The Dwarf White Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium candidum_) may also be
counted with Ram’s-Head Cypripedium as one of the rare species of the
Northern Atlantic Region. It is seldom found in the New England States.
In the range reported to the author for this species, there is but
one New England station. This has been given by A. W. Driggs of East
Hartford, Connecticut.[23] This orchid belongs more especially to the
damp swells of the prairie. It is very similar to the Dwarf Yellow
Cypripedium, except in color, and like it produces a faint fragrance.
This dainty white shoe is often no larger than the tiny Ram’s-Head
flower, the plant being about six to ten inches high, bearing small
waxen shoes, the shape of the blossoms of _Cypripedium parviflorum_. I
have often received descriptions from country lads, supposedly of these
White Moccasin-Flowers, only to find that they were either _albinos_,
or bleached out and pale specimens of the gorgeous colored _Cypripedium
reginæ_. Often the latter seem pure white to the hurried observer in the
swamps, for the albino or white variety rarely occurs. I found one plant,
however, this season bearing two blossoms, the first I ever saw, and I
removed the plant to watch it in my garden.
After Decoration Day, I had all I could do to keep pace with the
unfolding flowers in the woods on Mount Œta. In the Chestnut Woods and
Rattlesnake Swamp region, near Lloyd Spring, and along the mountain
sides of the Knubble and Domelet, I found beautiful azalea shrubs laden
with luxuriant clusters of fragrant pink flowers. These open woodlands
become brilliant with these rose-colored blossoms. The Large Yellow
Moccasin-Flower was here too, with violets, Stars-of-Bethlehem, and
innumerable pink blossoms of _Cypripedium acaule_ growing along the side
hill, shining out from every corner. All at once, these nearer woodlands
had unfurled their banners of spring, and now, “With blossom, and birds,
and wild bees’ hum,” they held me from the more distant Bogs of Etchowog.
On the 14th of June, however, I decided to take old Bonny and the buggy,
and drive to these bogs to see if any Pogonias and Limodorums were budded
as yet amid the grasses of the open cranberry marsh.
Bonny hitched to the old buggy, my faithful old Major at my side, and I,
with my vasculum for rare flowers, a basket containing drinking glass,
carving knife, and bog-hoe for gathering special roots, started down the
hill on an easy trot toward Pownal Pond. As I passed School Fourteen, I
was cheered and hailed by the children, who shouted, “Going a-flowering?”
I nodded “Yes,” with a “Get-ty up” to old Bonny, who had thought I wished
to visit along the way.
[Illustration: =The Small White Moccasin-Flower.= (_Cypripedium
candidum._)
This species is especially an orchid of the damp swells of the prairie,
growing in company with the Painted Cup and Iris.
“_There, I think, on that lonely grave,_
_Violets spring in the soft May shower;_
_There, in the summer breezes, wave_
_Crimson phlox and moccasin flower._”
BRYANT.]
It was warm and dusty, and whenever I could, I drove through the streams
which crossed the road, in order to swell the felly, and thus tighten
the tires to my rattling wheels. Although I felt that by driving along
the highway I was losing much beauty that was unfolding in the fields and
fence corners, I found this method of progress quite comfortable.
How these East Pownal bogs came by the musical name of _Etchowog_, I am
not quite certain; nor do I know exactly what it means. It may have come
from a primitive language of a mythological age for all I know, or it may
have come from the Itch-Weed or Indian Poke and Poison Rhus, which cause
much irritation of the skin. I am safe in saying that it is a corruption
of the Indian’s Greek and Latin words for “itch” and “bog,”—at least
this etymology quite suits the designation of these swamps. Ever since I
can remember I have heard the older folk of the town call it Etchowog.
I have associated the region with rare flowers, orchids, pollywogs,
snapping-turtles and mud-holes, together with the schoolhouse in District
Thirteen, where the good people hold Advent meetings, and set the dates
for the world to come to an end. To me it seems one of the brightest,
richest of swamps, full of “Bottomless Dead Holes,” where only bull-frogs
peep and trill and croak the whole season through, till their notes blend
with the chirp and whirr of the autumn crickets.
At the Barber Mill, I hitched Bonny to a fence-post and started on my
excursions. I looked through the open meadow east of the mill to see if
I could find any rose-colored Pogonias and Grass-Pinks. There was as
yet no sign of them; so I came back to the mill and turned in through
the bars, on the north side of the pond, where I followed a grassy path
around the hill to the treacherous Cranberry Swamp farther northward,
where I had been cautioned not to wander alone.
Sounding the margin of the marshy meadow, I found quaking and unstable
ground. With a ten-foot pole I probed the depths of the mud, and found
it unfathomable, and no signs of _terra firma_ about it. Pickerel-weed,
eel-grass, frog’s-bit, and the leaves of arrow-head grew about the pools.
I could not very well find an entrance here, unless for a permanent
residence. So going northward along the west shore of this mud-pond, I
came to a place which promised fair and safe walking, with my waterproof
boots for protection. At first I felt my way very cautiously, then grew
bolder and forgot that I was in a dangerous place, for the farther I
advanced, the firmer and drier and more enchanting became the field of my
vision.
Before me opened a wide expanse of meadow-land, where even unruly cows
dared not wander, and man seldom ventured to trespass. Nature’s remote
solitude indeed was peacefully hidden here. No human voices nor sounds
of hay-making ever echoed over these luxuriant fields, and the grasses
grew sweetly, to fall untouched to earth again, mown as it were by the
autumn winds, and stored beneath the drifts of November snow, to lay,
in time, one more thin coat of soil upon the unplumbed depths of this
ancient lake bed. During some long-ago winter, some one had ventured here
while the earth was frozen and safe, and had built a homely hedge-fence
through the meadow, probably to keep the cattle pasturing hereabout away
from the dangerous bog. This fence was the only visible trace of man. In
its tumbled-down and overgrown condition, it became a part of Nature’s
self, and added to the picturesqueness of the field. Although Rafinesque
says “that he hates the sight of fences like the Indians,” to me the
hedge-fence is one of the wildest and most primitive of forest barriers.
Indeed, it must have originated with the veritable wild man himself.
I was tempted on and still farther on through the meadow, by the
brilliant crimson-purple blossoms of the Pitcher Plant, or Side-Saddle
Flowers, so named on account of the hard shells of the stigma of these
flowers resembling the padded cushions of a lady’s ancient side-saddle.
This cushion was known as the “pillion.” The more common name in this
locality for these flowers is St. Jacob’s-Dippers and Dumb-Watches,
children playing with the hard shells of the stigmas left after the
purple petals have fallen, calling them watches. The convex surface of
the stigma does indeed resemble the face of a watch, although there are
no hands to point the hour. Gay blossoms of Fleur-de-lis flaunted their
gaudy petals, and many times deceived me by making me imagine that I
spied the Purple-Fringed Orchises in the distance, waving amid the tall
grasses.
Here I dreamed away an hour or more, following out some little paths,
worn perhaps by the muskrats or swamp minks or wicked weasels, or
perchance by the tiny feet of the meadow-moles, who apparently had
blindly rooted various underground tunnels in every direction. I can
fancy them all trotting swiftly along, playful at times, yet with an eye
to their affairs,—quite as important in the scheme of Nature and Science
as are the brokers’ studied operations in Wall Street. The weasels
and minks are the terrors of the other path-holders in this natural
syndicate. They are indeed the high and dreaded trust officials of the
lesser and blind rooters of the earth.
Tangled vines of the marsh cranberry were now in full bloom, and at
the same time the soft fruit of last autumn’s crop was present on the
vines, still bright crimson, even after enduring the winter’s frosts and
stubborn snows.
Looking northward to see what fields lay unexplored beyond me, I realized
the remoteness of this region slumbering amid these glacial hills. To my
right towered the Dome, the highest mountain of Pownal, of a bluish-green
tone, against the sky. Nearer, graceful elms, tall pines, and numerous
low pointed, lighter green tamarack trees lifted their spires, and
adorned the distant meadow; while in the wide expanse on the west side,
along the edges of the swamp, rose the giant forms of elm and pine, and
tall, lithe trees of the swamp maple, flashing forth their crimson and
gold blossoms, reminding me of the coloring of autumn leaves. The nearer
marsh was rich with tasselled grasses and blossoming vines, dotted here
and there with the cardinal buds of the Pitcher Plant and the purple
Fleur-de-lis. It seemed a land of dreams.
The air vibrated with the happy, mellow song of birds, interspersed with
the ever-present lesser sounds of deep solitudes. Major, like me, at
first, was cautious where he wandered, but once amid the various haunts
of wild creatures of the wood, he caught the happy spirit of the hound,
frisking and studiously following the paths of the wild little animals to
the very doors of their homes.
To test the land, I stood and deliberately shook the foundation of
the earth. All the blossoming ground about me, for at least fifteen
feet distant, trembled as if it were so much jelly. Yet the spot was
honeycombed and dry on the surface, there having been little rain in this
region during the month.
I now sought the western hillside path, and bearing northwestward around
the border of the swamp, I occasionally ventured in and out along the
edges of the meadow bushes. Finally I reached the swamp maples, which
I had observed from the interior, and I secured a good-sized branch of
the gold and crimson clusters to carry off with my load of treasures.
On every hand, out of the small, muddy pools of water, rose the leaves
of the Buckbean (_Menyanthes trifoliata_). The beautiful spikes of
white-bearded flowers were turning brown with age, and the plants were
setting their bullet-like seed-pods. Now and then, beneath the low,
shaggy pines, I found the humble Pink Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium
acaule_), which I hailed as a sign that the Showy Queen of the genus
might dwell not far distant.
Knowing the favorite haunts which this orchid seeks, I searched through
all the dark corners of the swamp. At the extreme northwestern portion
of the region, I entered a dense shaded corner about fifty feet square,
where were many springs soaking through the sphagnum to the deeper
fields of the interior which I had so lately left. Here were numerous
decaying pine and tamarack logs, low sapling willows tangled amid the
small scrubby spruces and tender pines, which were striving against the
greater natives of the forest to lift their spires as high as possible;
but however eager they were, they had not attained a height above ten or
fifteen feet at most. Many were already discouraged or had died in the
competition, and their wasting forms were still standing with broken and
weather-worn trunks and limbs.
Tall brakes and Indian Poke ran riot among the deeper mounds of moss,
which covered the decaying roots of the long wasted primeval pitch pines.
The dark, sluggish pools reflected weirdly the ferns and trees above them.
[Illustration: =The Queen of the Indian Moccasin-Flowers.= (_Cypripedium
reginæ._) =From the Bogs of Etchowog, Pownal, Vermont.=]
Shooting up from these piles of sphagnum, I found at least fifty plants
of the Showy Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium reginæ_). They were pregnant
with slumbering buds, and would surely be in full blossom by June 20th.
Happy over my good fortune at locating another station for this species,
I prepared to bend my footsteps toward my horse and buggy,—glad indeed
to know that I would not be obliged to walk home, laden as I was with
Pitcher Plant roots and various other shrubs and vines.
Near the mill, just north of the little bay in the pond, I found
quantities of the Yellow Pond Lily or Spatter-Dock (_Nymphæa advena_)
just beyond my reach. Securing a long willow sapling with a tender end, I
tied it into a loop, and stepping out into the shallow edges of the pond
to an old pine log, I snared off several of these golden cups, which the
children call Cow-Lilies. I floated them in to the shore, where I soon
gathered them up and packed them in my vasculum.
A glance into the water along the edges of the old log revealed thousands
of tiny pollywogs or tadpoles, as well as half-formed frogs, the hind
legs beginning to put forth on the large tadpoles. Here, basking in the
sunshine, were lizards, snails, leeches; and various species of small
fish were sporting in the shallow waters. Perch, suckers, and eels are
plentiful in Pownal Pond, which is locally called Perch Pond, from the
abundance of perch found in its waters. These fish seemed to seek this
sheltered arm of the pond to leave their young fry under the sheltering
lily-pads.
Near the projecting stumps, amid floating logs were snails’ eggs, and I
noticed several baby turtles, recently hatched from eggs in the sand,
varying from the size of nickels to that of a silver dollar. Eel-grass
and many marsh grasses and sedges grew or floated on the water, among
which the small fish could hide.
On the edge of the water among the ferns and brakes I found the leaves of
the Purple-Fringed Orchis (_Habenaria psycodes_), but no plants likely to
bloom this season.
When I reached the mill, I placed my treasures in the buggy, and started
after that part of my load which I had left around the hill. On my
return, I gathered some waxen, crimson cones of the beautiful tamarack
tree by the path. When I bade farewell to little Merwin and his mother,
who lived in the mill-house, I asked them to watch for the rose-purple
orchids,—Pogonias and Limodorums,—which were now due any day, east of the
mill. The boy was very earnest and observing, and I knew that I now had a
comrade to guard over the Bogs of Etchowog.
Students from Williams College, and tourists from near and afar seek
these swamps of Pownal for botanical specimens, and Merwin had often
been their guide to the haunts of these rare treasures. He told me that
students from Williams had, the year before, gathered innumerable pink
and purple flowers in these marshes, as well as the beautiful bearded
spikes of the Buckbean.
For a succession of years—during all of President Carter’s term at
Williams College at least—it has been the unique custom to bank the
chancel of the Congregational Church with the Showy Moccasin-Flowers and
Maiden-Hair Ferns, on Baccalaureate Sunday,—which occurs usually about
June twentieth. These gorgeously colored orchids reach the height of
their perfection about this date. They seem a fitting decoration for the
church during the Commencement services of this college, situated in the
heart of these Hoosac Highlands.
Plentiful as are the colonies of this Showy Moccasin-Flower in its pet
localities, it has always been an interesting question to me where the
great numbers of perfect blossoms grouped about the chancel are secured.
They are known to the children in each school district, and usually they
are collected as soon as discovered.
It is surprising to me that extinction of this rare plant is not taking
place more rapidly hereabout. This orchid produces very few seedlings in
its native haunts, and at the rate of collecting both its blossoms and
roots in this valley, we must surely look for total extinction in less
than half a century more, unless this ruthless plucking is modified.
VI
Hail Storms at Etchowog
... Suddenly, a flaw
Of chill wind menaced; then a strong blast beat
Down the long valley’s murmuring pines and awoke
The noon-dreams of the sleeping lake, and broke
Its smooth steel mirror at the mountain’s feet.
WHITTIER, _Storm on Lake Asquam_.
On June 21st, with Major I walked down through the Swamp of Oracles in
District Fourteen, along Ball Brook to the Kimball Farm bogs, and so on
once more to the Bogs of Etchowog and the new colony of _Reginæ_—the
queen of the Indian Moccasin-Flowers—which I had so recently discovered
in Cranberry Bog north of the pond. I found prime blossoms all along the
tiny path, in the course of the stream through the deeper parts of Glen
of Comus, and in the Kimball Bogs, and I was in hopes of finding them in
the swamps of Etchowog.
As I passed through the sphagnous meadows east of Kimball’s barns, around
the hillside path to Arethusa’s Fountain, I noticed several flowers of
the Cypripedium I was seeking, and recognized the leaves and green-budded
spikes of _Habenaria psycodes_, which would later, when fully in bloom,
change to a delicate purple.
[Illustration: =The Small Purple-Fringed Orchis.= (_Habenaria psycodes._)]
I made use of the fence boards to walk through the muddy portions of
my path. I had learned by former experiences here to avoid the “dead
holes.” Stepping on some boards just above a muddy pool, and suddenly
turning, I was happily surprised to see many spikes of the Tall White
Northern-Orchis (_Habenaria dilatata_) standing near. The air was full of
their rich perfume, and many small flies and moths hovered around them,
sipping the nectar. I gathered a few spikes, and went on to the cool
spring beyond, finding meanwhile an abundance of wild strawberries along
the borders of my path. These were very large from growing in the moist
shade.
On the hillside, up which I climbed to the west for a short distance, I
found pretty leaves of grasses, delicate emerald in color, growing in a
triangular form, and resembling lily leaves.
I had heard distant thunder rolling off to the northwest, and it caused
me to hasten onward. My rest, therefore, at the spring was brief to-day;
although so far away from home, I was not so far from shelter, and the
thought of a shower was welcome, for the air was sultry. As I neared the
open swamp, beyond the mill, the storm made rapid strides, but I wandered
up and down the meadow long enough to assure myself that this season the
Pogonias and Limodorums were not in bloom on time.
Large drops of rain began to fall from the black clouds, and as I hurried
toward the shelter of the mill, I met Merwin and his mother returning
to their home. They motioned me to join them. As I did so, great gusts
of wind dashed over us, and suddenly huge hailstones pelted the earth.
Leaves and small twigs and young apples fell on every side, while the
half-grown nuts from the Butternut-tree (_Juglans cinerea_), in the
dooryard, were soon stripped away, with the leaves and broken limbs of
the tree. Some of the hailstones were the size of small hen’s-eggs,
perfect, oval ices which might have been turned out of glass moulds.
Soon the air became very chilly, as during the first snow on a damp
November day, while the ground was white with hailstones. This abrupt
change in the atmosphere from heat to extreme cold caused untimely deaths
in the chicken yard. The old mother hen lost her head completely, and
unable to find shelter in the barn because of the banging doors, she put
her head in a crevice while her brood ran about and perished with cold or
were killed by the stones.
Merwin’s mother sadly watched the devastation of her little garden,
and the death of her chickens. It was impossible to go to their rescue
without danger to our own heads. This storm continued about two hours,
alternating now and then with a calm, to return again and again with
sudden fury. At the end of that time, although it still rained sadly,
I started for home, knowing that with rubber boots I could wade, if
necessary, through any ordinary streams.
The weather had turned so cold that an icy coating covered the meadow
grass and the borders of the road, and promised not to melt away in haste.
As I neared Kimball Farm, where Ball Brook meets Thompson’s stream, I
found the road opposite the barns flooded,—like a river flowing across
the road. It was far too deep for me to wade through, besides, the
current was so strong that I should have been tripped had I ventured it.
I had to walk some distance on the stone wall and over a heavy plank,
which some one during a previous deluge had placed here for a high-water
foot-bridge in an emergency.
A walk up the hill, and I turned off the road, entering a path through
the cow-pastures, to see the heaps of hail under the pines along
Thompson’s Brook, which was a beautiful, roaring and seething torrent
now, as it plunged and leaped down through its rocky flume to the valley
below.
As I came out on the highway again, at the bend in the road near Ball
Farm, I heard the familiar voice of some one who had been sent in search
of me. I was warmed with enthusiasm and interest in the storm’s ravages,
and thoroughly enjoying my walk. However, I was grateful for a ride home.
Passing by School Fourteen, we saw the prudent teacher scanning the sky
before she ventured forth. We noticed many broken panes of glass in the
schoolhouse windows, while dozens were shattered in the houses along the
way.
I had hoped to revisit the colony of the Showy Moccasin-Flowers which
I had found in Cranberry Swamp, north of the pond on June 14th. But
Merwin’s mother told me that without doubt they had been gathered on
Saturday afternoon, June 19th, by three students from Williams College;
she had seen two of them come around the hill by the pond about five
o’clock on that day, bearing a new bushel-basket filled with these
gorgeous orchids, while the third soon followed laden with more than
he could easily carry far in his arms. They followed the cool mountain
road over the Domelet to Williamstown, a road over which the yeomen from
northern Berkshire were led to battle at Bennington, on the 16th of
August, 1777. The road is seldom traversed now, and at best is rough and
rocky. It leads directly from Bennington southward to North Adams, under
the mountains, and indirectly to Boston.
Had the storm come on Saturday, instead of Monday, very few blossoms of
these orchids would have decorated the church chancel on Baccalaureate
Sunday for Williams’ Commencement exercises.
The fact that these students come to the Pownal bogs for these orchids
assured me of the scarcity and rarity of the species in Williamstown,
although they may be found sparingly in the swamps of The Forks along
Broad Brook, just over the Vermont State Line in Pownal. This stream
rises on the east side of the Majestic Dome, and flows down to the Hoosac
by way of White Oaks, and thus enters Williamstown, where it soon joins
the river. The orchids in The Forks are quickly plundered, long before
June 20th, by ignorant tourists or students afield botanizing, who either
do not realize or do not care that plucking all these rare blossoms will
in time bring about their total extinction.
Orchids may in many instances produce seeds in abundance, but why they do
not reproduce more seedlings is a problem not easily solved nor remedied.
Darwin once estimated that a single spike of the English Orchis (_Orchis
masculata_) produced over 186,000 seeds, and that at this rate its
grandchildren would soon carpet the earth; while Müller says also that
his brother estimated 1,750,000 seeds in a single capsule of another
species of the family (_Maxillaria_). We must remember that the species
of _Orchidacea_ are not as a rule self-fertilized, as are the more
abundant and common flowers and weeds, which often cover acres of swampy
land and fields of waste land. Our native orchids are wholly dependent
upon insects for fertilization and cross-fertilization; yet, for some
cause or other, comparatively few of the ripened and fertile seeds
germinate and reproduce new seedlings. Our Moccasin-Flowers do not appear
to multiply in many swamps, while species of Orchis and Habenaria are
never abundant in this region.
For years now, I have noticed large groups of the Showy Lady’s Slippers
growing in Rattlesnake Swamp near Lloyd Spring, and I can find little
increase in the number of plants, or the size of the old snarl of roots.
In fact, they seem to be diminishing in numbers.
There is an old colony in this region that has stood for about
seventy-five years, much the same in size, on the authority of the old
inhabitants of this neighborhood. It stands to-day among the shrub-like
willows and swamp maples, at the feet of little scrub pines and dwarf
double spruces, hidden from the sight of travellers in the path by a
prostrate tree trunk and decaying primeval pine stump. I observed this
colony years ago, and this season it appeared the same to me, occupying
a space about two feet square. I counted forty-two full-grown flowers,
many stems bearing two blossoms. This indeed was one of the most charming
sights, suggesting the luxuriance of the humid climate of the tropics. It
was even more enchanting than the colony of Pink Moccasin-Flowers,—that
famous group of two hundred buds which the children in District Fourteen
secured ahead of me, since this group of flowers were massed more closely
together. I wished a sight of the Pink Moccasin-Flowers at their best.
I left these, too, undisturbed save by the little moths and mosquitoes
and honeybees, which came to drink the nectar within the pearly pink and
white cups.
Notwithstanding the recent hailstorms, which had split many cups and
spilt the dew, the flowers were developing plump, hard seed-capsules.
Thousands of fertile seeds must fall and fly about from this colony; and
yet the aged snarl of roots remains the same.
A unique row of seedlings of this species (_Cypripedium reginæ_) too
young to blossom, and reminding one of a row of barn-swallows, not yet
sufficiently matured to fly, grew along a moss-covered pine log, near
the parent colony of plants. Digging down, I found the old log about
twelve inches below the surface. It was sound at the heart, bare of its
outer bark, and had become so imbedded in the water-soaked peat as to
be absolutely preserved. The stump from which this tree had fallen was
worn and crumbled away to the very earth, and capped with moss. It will
require years for this log to settle into the peat deeply enough to allow
these seedling orchids to ply and mass their roots in generous soft soil.
Unless their roots deeply penetrate rich soil, the plants become pale in
color and dwarfed, like the plants growing in loose sphagnum.
[Illustration: =The Showy Moccasin-Flower—The White-Petaled
Lady’s-Slipper—The Queen of the Indian’s Moccasin-Flowers.=
(_Cypripedium reginæ._)
“_Rushes tilting their burnished spears,_
_These are her courtly cavaliers._
_Heart of my heart, we forswear the rose,_
_We have been where the lady slipper grows._”
CLINTON SCOLLARD, _In the Heart of June_.]
I missed some old colonies; these were of a new generation, and if they
are not starved out, will blossom here in a row another year.
Another cluster of plants growing near by produces the deepest magenta
blossoms that I ever beheld, and only in this one group have I seen
this particular hue. A deep rose-purple extends over almost the whole
labellum, and from a distance I thought I had discovered the long-sought
Purple-Fringed Orchis,—such a flame of color rose before me. It almost
seemed a variety of the true _Cypripedium reginæ_.
This swamp produced just one hundred blossoms this season. Of this number
I gathered about twenty-five among the scattered plants, leaving the
older groups to ripen their seeds, if possible.
I found the first fully unfolded Showy Lady’s Slippers of the season,
on June 8th, in the Swamp of Oracles in District Fourteen; while those
of Rattlesnake Swamp unfolded fully this season on June 20th, and faded
about July 1st, the season being shortened by the heavy hailstorms.
I have noticed that orchids growing in open, sunny swamps are stocky
and short-scaped, bearing highly colored blossoms; while in shaded,
muddy glooms the plants are rank and tender, with pale flowers, which do
not last nearly so long as those which grow in the sunlight. The deeply
colored specimens mentioned above grew wholly in the sunshine, and beside
a fresh flowing stream.
I have transplanted all the New England species of Cypripedium, but only
two of them took kindly to the garden for a succession of seasons. The
small yellow species, _Cypripedium parviflorum_, seems easily naturalized
in our damp woodland corners of the garden. The large yellow species,
_Cypripedium hirsutum_, closely allied with the small yellow species,
is easily managed in the same colony. The Ram’s-Head (_Cypripedium
arietinum_) is more choice in its home, being rarely seen in cultivation.
It is not very plentiful even in its native haunts.
I have sent plants of the Showy Lady’s Slipper and the Large Yellow
Lady’s Slipper found on Mount Œta, to New Bedford, Massachusetts, to
Herkimer, New York, and to New Haven, Connecticut. In every instance
they have become happy in their new surroundings, thriving and blooming
through several seasons. The Small Yellow Cypripedium in New Haven has
flourished and bloomed for ten seasons. The seed-capsules of these
orchids, however, have never matured fertile seeds in this garden; and
the pods wither up and do not develop as in the forest bogs, for want of
the proper insects to fertilize them. It would be well to secure pollen
from sister species of this plant in the Swamp of Oracles, and insure
fertilization and cross-fertilization of this tame garden plant. We might
look for possible hybrids, since this species is well broken away, by ten
years of cultivation, from its primeval condition.
The Showy Lady’s Slipper does not take so naturally to the garden, and in
many instances does not live so long in captivity as would be expected.
It will, however, produce seedlings readily, if care is taken to protect
the surrounding soil in winter, where the seed is sown.
An interesting experiment, with artificial agencies producing fertile
seed of this species, is related by F. F. Le Moyne of Chicago. He sowed
the seed thus obtained artificially for two successive seasons, and
secured seedlings from each sowing. He also believes that “this plant
could be multiplied very rapidly from seed thus fertilized,” in garden
culture.[24]
This year, I sent the rare Ram’s-Head to the New Haven Garden, with hopes
of its blossoming next May. This Cypripedium is the rarest orchid in
North America.
The Pink Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium acaule_) is the most common
species of the genus in New England, and on the continent of North
America, north of Mexico, with the exception of the two Yellow
Cypripediums, which claim a broader range from east to west. The Pink
Cypripedium proves the most stubborn and difficult in cultivation. It
may be potted during the winter, but seldom, if ever, blooms more than a
single season.
While many of our native orchids have a certain amount of adaptiveness to
environment, they never will be found to choose absolutely dry soil, such
as the rocky sheep pastures in which the common pennyroyal thrives. A
sheltered, damp corner is safest for the exiled plant, where the sunshine
searches long to brighten its petals.
One cold day in early March, I secured a frozen sod containing the
roots of the Showy Lady’s Slipper, and made an artificial bog in the
bay-window, where I watched it thaw out. The flowers burst forth about
a month earlier than when in the swamps. But although they were fully
in the warm rays of the May sun, the blossoms were pale and delicate.
The same cluster of plants sent forth deep rose-tinged blossoms the next
season, in the damp corner of my garden, where I planted them. They
became strong, healthy plants, flowering several seasons on the regular
date for Pownal, June 20th. It is therefore evident that dates for
blossoming differ more according to the exposure of the haunt than to the
variations of seasons. But in the Swamp of Oracles I know where I can
find this Showy Queen of the Indian Moccasins as early as June 8th, and I
know of other haunts where it is not unfurled until the 15th and 20th of
the month.
VII
Sweet Pogonias and Limodorums
Come bring me wild pinks from the valleys,
Ablaze with the fire o’ the sun—
No poor little pitiful lilies
That speak of a life that is done!
ALICE CARY, _Be Still_.
On June 26th we drove over to Thompson’s Trout Pond. We took the old
flat-bottomed boat, and with one slab board for a paddle, steered slowly
over the whole surface of the lake,—a beautiful, clear little mountain
mirror, with good-sized fish swimming about. I searched along the shores
for the long-desired Purple-Fringed Orchises, but still without success.
Fleur-de-lis grew abundantly about the lake; and in the little dents and
bays among the sedges and cat-tails, I found the Yellow Spatter-Dock
or Cow-Lily (_Nymphæa_), so named in the time of Christ by the ancient
herbalist, Dioscorides, who first gave it the Greek name _Blephara_, and
later, in Latin, _Nymphæa lutea_ and _Nenuphar citrinum_. It was known in
England in 1500 as Yellow Nenuphar or, Water Lily.
The swamp birds are tame and saucy here. Paddling our boat into the
reedy shores among the alder bushes, where they were nesting, they
seemed to take no alarm at our approach, but stood their ground pouring
forth beautiful liquid notes. In one place near the centre of the lake,
we crossed an expanse of deep water where long rootlets of the Water
Persicaria (_Polygonum amphibium_) supported glossy carmine, lance-like
leaves, which swayed gracefully on the surface of the swelling waves
as we approached. These strange deep-water weeds send forth rich
crimson or pinkish flowers a little later, seeming fairly to stain the
lake. I had never seen this species before growing in such depths of
water. It is a species of the Buckwheat Family, and a near cousin of
the barnyard smart-weed and the knot-grass or door-weed. The generic
name, _Polygonum_, comes from the Greek, meaning “many knees.” It is so
called on account of the swollen joints of some of the species of this
family. The leaves of the Water Persicaria are brilliant crimson on the
lower surface, and with age and exposure the upper surface turns deep
Indian-red.
These plants were rooted at least fifteen feet below the water’s surface
in the mud. They may be found, too, along the shallow shores of Pownal
Pond. They also grow in ponds and lakes far northward to Quebec and
Alaska, and as far south as New Jersey and Kentucky, and westward to
California. They thrive at an altitude of two thousand feet, in the
lakes of the Adirondacks, blooming there, as a rule, in July and August.
Thoreau observed this species in the lakes of the Maine woods, during his
journey in 1853.
On the 30th of June I ventured forth to Etchowog, in search of Pogonias
and Limodorums, although the season was almost too far advanced for prime
specimens. I had heard the day before that some blossoms of these plants
had been gathered in the Westville Swamps, near New Haven, Connecticut.
I thus felt encouraged to search once more for these beautiful orchids.
With luncheon and vasculum, and Major following me, I journeyed over the
meadows and hills of Mount Œta to the north slope of the Domelet, where I
crossed the country road. Finally I descended into a deep basin under the
Dome, which rises east of the Domelet. Northward nestled the neat white
and red farm buildings near Thompson’s Pond, and far beyond them all I
saw the blue, blue hills of Bennington County.
Everywhere I searched for the Fringed Orchis, which had so far eluded me
in these swamps. The meadow seemed interminable as I circled around to
the east of the pond. Bearing to the northward, I noticed nothing new
except the ravages of the recent hailstorm. It had cut down flowers and
corn-fields alike. The very hills were washed down from the mountain
sides; great gutters and still flowing streams were eroding the
corn-fields, scattering the sandy soil broadcast over the once green
meadows. Even the edges of the grasses were brown and sear, and the
Timothy-heads of the Cat’s-tail Grass were stripped prematurely of their
seed.
I followed Thompson’s Brook, leading northerly from the pond, in through
several willow and alder swamps. Then, instead of following down the
rocky channel to Ball Brook Forks, I struck out directly at the head of
the Meyers Road, over the fields, north from the maple-sugar house, and
landed on the high hills south of the great meadows of Etchowog. Sleeping
at my feet lay those sphagnous bogs which had already yielded me so many
rare flowers, and so much pleasure. Northward stretched out a vast sweep
of hills and valleys, reaching nearly the whole length of Bennington
County. To the right towered the massive abutments of the Dome, and to
the left rose the isolated form of Mount Anthony,—these two mountains
framing, as it were, the gap northward, through whose wide vista I could
define the dim blue heights of Mount Equinox, at Manchester. Nearer, I
could trace fertile vales and sloping hillsides, dotted here and there
with woodlands, scattered trees and farm buildings.
Standing still nearer in the shadow of Mount Anthony was Bennington Hill,
with the Battle Monument clearly outlined even at this distance, some
ten miles away. In the nearer landscape were discernible the serpentine
windings of Ball Brook, with its long chain of tamarack and balsam-fir
swamps, spreading out here and there toward Bennington,—where, I dare
say, are many rich and undiscovered colonies of Lady’s Slippers.
[Illustration: =The Northern Gap. Showing the Taconic Mountains of
Bennington County, from Mount Œta, Vermont. The Bennington Battle
Monument towers to the left in the distance.=
“_Over all the mountains_
_Is peace._”]
Nearer yet, the knob-like glacial hills around Pownal Pond shield the
Cranberry Swamp to the north, and the open Bogs of Etchowog east of the
pond. Nestling among the trees by the mill, I picked out the roof of
the mill-house where little Merwin lives. But the shadows of hill and
mountain were growing longer in the valley as the sun sank toward the
west, and it behooved me to waste no more time dreaming on the hilltop.
So I slowly descended to the valley, groping my way between bushy young
pines, passing a herd of gentle, meek-faced Jersey cows feeding on the
hillside. I found many cow-paths running around the bog, and was led out
into the swamp at a point nearly opposite the little white schoolhouse of
Barber District, Number Thirteen.
I did not find the place rose-purple with the little orchids, as it
should have been, but I did find a few dozen plants of Grass-Pinks
(_Limodorum tuberosum_), and six or eight delicate rose-pink blossoms
of Snake-Mouth (_Pogonia ophioglossoides_). I gathered a few flowers of
each, grateful that any remained to assure me that they were not quite
extinct here, and I observed how very careful one must be in plucking the
flowers not to pull the little roots and bulbs out of the moss at the
same time.
All my plants grew east of the stream that runs through the centre of the
swamp. When I tried to cross this creek, I found it so broad and deep
and muddy that I could not get anywhere near it. Wandering toward the
road skirting the bog, I came to a rude board bridge over the stream,
indicating a path formerly leading through the swamp to Barber’s Mill.
Some high-water tide had twisted and turned the plank about so that only
by catching and clinging to small bushes and saplings on the other bank
could I succeed in crossing. I found no Pogonias and Limodorums on the
west side of the stream, and it was just here that I had once found the
meadow one wave of rose-purple.
Reaching the mill, I hastened around the bend in the road. A little to
the south of Arethusa’s Spring, and scarcely five feet to the left of
the path, under some willows, I saw a dark, insignificant looking pool.
Stooping down and touching the surface, I found it icy cold. This pool,
Merwin’s mother tells me, has always been here, and at no time in her
memory has she heard of any one being successful in measuring its depth,
although it has been probed with very long sounding-poles. These have
been dropped fifty feet or more. Frequently she has left a long pole
standing in the pool, only to find upon returning later that it had
disappeared in the depths below, proving great suction. Such holes and
springs are characteristic of the swamps of Etchowog, where the original
lake bed was located over a century ago, before the water of Ball Brook
was turned in its course through the present pond west of the mill. This
“dead hole” should be fenced in and marked “dangerous,” since it might so
easily be stepped into by one unacquainted with its character.
[Illustration: =The Rose Pogonia.= (_Pogonia ophioglossoides._)
A delicate little orchid, found as comrade with the Grass Pink, and
frequently with Arethusa, in wild sphagnous meadows.]
I followed the familiar and loved path out to the sphagnous meadows east
of Kimball’s barns. Taking a straight line southward up the hill, back
of an orchard, along the border of a field of Indian corn, I came again
to Thompson’s Brook, on its way to join Ball Brook, near the Kimball
barns below. It is one of the stoniest channels, narrow and deeply worn,
with here and there graceful clinging ferns slightly caught to the
banks, and often completely hiding the huge boulders and ledges. Pines
and hemlocks are the principal trees along this stream. The twisted and
uncovered reddish roots of the hemlocks seemed to have split the black
shelving slate rocks asunder with their growth. I threaded my way as near
the brook as possible, often finding it necessary to wade in the stream
until I reached the bend in the road near Meyers’s sugar-kitchen among
the maples. Here, turning to my right, I followed the shaded road leading
past the schoolhouse in District Fourteen, and homeward to Mount Œta.
My orchids were pretty well withered on reaching home, and not in good
condition for studying. These delicate species of Pogonia and Limodorum
are easily wilted, losing their beauty and elasticity soon after being
severed from their roots. These two species, Adder’s-Mouth Pogonia and
_Limodorum tuberosum_, are almost invariably found together,—comrades of
different genera that travel far and wide in company throughout their
continental ranges.
The Adder’s-Mouth Pogonia has been formerly confused with our
native species of _Arethusa bulbosa_, and for some time was known
as Adder’s-Tongue Arethusa. Thomas Wentworth Higginson writes: “On
peat-meadows the Adder’s-Tongue Arethusa (now called _Pogonia_) flowers
profusely, with a faint, delicious perfume,—and its more elegant cousin,
the _Calopogon_, (now called _Limodorum_) by its side.”[25]
Yet Thoreau had a different impression of the rose-pink Pogonia’s
fragrance, and says in his notes in _Summer_, on June 21, 1852: “The
adder’s-tongue arethusa smells exactly like a snake. How singular that
in Nature, too, beauty and offensiveness should be thus combined!”[26]
On July 7, 1852, he again mentions these species of orchids: “The very
handsome ‘pink-purple’ flowers of the _Calopogon pulchellus_ (now known
as _Limodorum tuberosum_) enrich the grass all around the edge of
Hubbard’s blueberry swamp, and are now in their prime. The _Arethusa
bulbosa_, ‘crystalline purple,’ _Pogonia ophioglossoides_, snake-mouthed
(tongued) arethusa, ‘pale-purple,’ and the _Calopogon pulchellus_,
grass-pink, ‘pink-purple,’ make one family in my mind (next to the purple
orchis, or with it), being flowers _par excellence_, all flower, naked
flowers, and difficult, at least the Calopogons, to preserve. But they
are flowers, excepting the first, at least, without a name. _Pogonia!_
_Calopogon!!_ They would blush still deeper if they knew what names man
had given them.”[27]
The Pogonia seems to bloom slightly in advance of Limodorum, and is a
delicate, waxen-pink flower. It raises its single terminal blossom about
six inches high amid the tall grasses of the swampy meadow. It is not so
beautiful as its comrade species, the Grass-Pink; but to me it is sweetly
fragrant, and since it is an orchid, it is precious, although small and
somewhat unsightly in its suggestiveness.
[Illustration: =The Thompson Brook, East Pownal, Vermont.=
“_They left their home of Summer ease_
_Beneath the lowland’s sheltering trees,_
_To seek, by ways unknown to all,_
_The promise of the waterfall._”
WHITTIER.]
There are two leaves: one, oblong and sessile, appears in the middle of
the stem; and another smaller, bract-like leaf is found at the base of
the seed-capsule, bearing the nodding blossom with its alert bearded
petals. The roots are little clusters of fibrous threads, loosely
attached in the moss-grown mounds of the primeval forest stumps,—which
are slowly decaying below the soil in these aged swamps.
The Grass-Pink (_Limodorum tuberosum_) is much more attractive, with
its rose and pink-purple blossoms. The spike, often a foot high, bears
from two to fifteen beautiful and slightly fragrant flowers. The
origin of the generic name, _Limodorum_, comes from the Greek, meaning
“a meadow gift.” These flowers, according to Mr. Coleman, are called
Grass-Pinks in Michigan, while Thoreau also called them by the same name
in Massachusetts.[28] The labellum seems hinged at the insertion, and
is bearded with yellow and purple hairs. There is seldom more than one
freshly blown blossom on the stalk at a time, and thus the plant remains
attractive for some days. Beginning at the lowermost bud, each one takes
its turn in unfolding, the spike slowly lengthening while the buds
constantly increase in size and color.
One interesting peculiarity of this species is that it remains as Nature
originally intended all species of orchids,—with the labellum as the
_upper_ petal, instead of the lower, as seen in all other native species.
It will be observed in species of the Orchid Family that a twist of the
seed-pod has taken place: if not a complete revolution, at least half
a turn. The labellum is, therefore, directed forward on the lower or
inferior side, as in the species of Cypripedium, where it appears in the
position of a shoe or moccasin, instead of holding itself above like a
dome, as originally intended by Nature. Darwin says of this: “An enormous
amount of extinction must have swept away a multitude of intermediate
forms, and has left this single genus, now widely distributed, as
a record of a former and more simple state of the great Orchidean
Order.”[29]
The ovary of the Grass-Pink is straight, and the labellum so hinged that
it falls down like an arch above, bearded with delicate hairs. The column
bearing the anther, containing four soft pollen-masses, curves slightly
at the end, producing a hollow wherein lies the pollinia. The stigmatic
surface lies still farther toward the centre of the column. An insect
sipping nectar from these flowers, safely enters without distributing
the adhesive pollinia, since the anthers containing the cells are so
hinged that not until he turns to leave the heart of the flower does he
swing open the lid of the cup containing the powdery gold, which fastens
to the velvet of his coat beneath his body. The next flower of this
species, therefore, becomes fertilized properly, and in turn unlocks
her treasure-store as the insect backs off the keel of the pollen mass.
Professor Meehan writes that this plant “rarely fails to produce perfect
seed-vessels. Yet it is seldom that plants which depend on insects for
their supply of pollen, as these are supposed to do, and which are not
fertilized by their own pollen, produce seeds from every flower.”[30]
[Illustration: =The Grass-Pink.= (_Limodorum tuberosum._)
This is a strange, beautiful orchid with a straight seed-pod (ovary),
which causes the labellum to remain on the upper side of the inner whorl,
instead of the lower side by torsion as in nearly all other orchids.]
It is said that the twisted ovary seen in orchids came about through
necessity in fertilization. This has caused, as Darwin says, “the
labellum to assume the position of a lower petal, so that insects can
easily visit the flower; but from slow changes in the form or position of
the petals, or from new sorts of insects visiting the flowers, it might
be advantageous to the plant that the labellum should resume its normal
position on the _upper_ side of the flower.”[31] In the present position
of the labellum of Cypripedium we observe the convenient resting-place
for the bee as it alights and descends to the interior, where are stored
the nectar and attractive colors. The insect must be persevering indeed
to win the soul of the orchids, since Nature has constructed their
organs with such care and modifications. The hidden hinge to the cups of
pollen—as instanced in the flowers of the Grass-Pink—demonstrates that
even the finest hairs and tissues in these plants have their meaning and
their values.
Self-fertilization seems impossible to the Rose-colored Pogonia, which
bears but one flower. The plants must inter-cross. An interesting account
of the fertilization of this orchid is given at length by Dr. Samuel
H. Scudder,[32] in the _Proceedings_ of the Boston Society of Natural
History.
VIII
A Colony of Ram’s-Heads in Witch Hollow
The solemn wood had spread
Shadows around my head,—
“Curtains they are,” I said,
“Hung dim and still about the house of prayer”;
Softly among the limbs,
Turning the leaves of hymns,
I heard the winds, and asked if God were there.
No voice replied, but while I listening stood,
Sweet peace made holy hushes through the wood.
ALICE CARY, _The Sure Witness_.
It was often a temptation during my search for wild strawberries, to
saunter through the swampy meadows on the northern slopes of Mount Œta,
where nesting bobolinks were busy about their homes. Their happy notes
are the first to awaken one in the morning, and almost the last heard
at twilight, about the edges of the road and the orchard, where they
come in a very business-like way to search for food, crying the while,
“Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link, spink, spank, spink; chee, chee, chee!”
As twilight deepens and the moon comes up from behind the grim form of
the Dome, the mournful notes of a distant chorus of whippoorwills begin,
echoing on until far into the early morning. The other noon I was
startled to hear a baby whippoorwill practising his melancholy tale on
the hillside above the house, where no doubt his mother had lost him the
night before. He had “stayed out all night,” and knew no better than to
sing in the daytime. I suppose his mother had not yet taught him when
and how to sing, for he could only lisp now, saying “’Tis-so-still!
’Tis-so-still!” It sounded very odd at noon, although it was dark and
rainy. I searched through the daisied meadow for him, and found that he
was a full-sized bird,—too large to be lisping such baby notes, though
not old enough to find the way to the twilight woods alone. Perhaps he
was backward in his singing lessons, and his mother had punished him
by leaving him to practise all day, when other birds of the night were
drowsing under the shelter of old logs in the deep wood. So he sang on
and on, at intervals, all the afternoon in the rain, out on the grassy
hilltop.
I found a bobolink’s nest low in the swamp meadow, near where there were
many busy “Roberts of Lincoln.” Their rich, energetic, gladsome song was
very contagious, and brightened many an hour when I was housed, or sat on
the porch, watching the storms come up in the north and west.
[Illustration: =The Perry Elm, Marking the Site of Fort Massachusetts,
on the Harrison’s Flats, North Adams, Massachusetts, Showing Saddleback
Mountain in the Distance.=]
Mount Œta is one of the foothills of the Dome, lying just west of the
Domelet. The Hoosac glides around its “dug-away” base, passing through
the narrowest portion of the valley near the Massachusetts State Line.
This pass is often called the “Golden Gate,” likened to the Pass of
Thermopylæ, among the mountains of ancient Greece. Indeed, the warring
history of this valley may be comparable with that of the plains of
Marathon and the mountains of Hellas. Through the Hoosac Pass, during
the French and Indian Wars, have marched the French cadets and cunning
Indians, led by General Rigaud de Vaudreuil, to storm and capture
Fort Massachusetts near the base of Greylock’s Brotherhood. Here they
fought, sixty to one. These encounters were but forerunners of the
Bennington rebellion among the Green Mountain Boys, and the conflicts at
Ticonderoga, which led to one of the world’s great battles, fought among
the hills and vales of Saratoga.
The summit of Mount Œta is crowned with luxuriant farms, with flowing
fields of grain and grasses. Miniature hills and vales between, with
little streams leading down the slopes, perfect an ideal pastoral dream.
There is none of the boldness in the scene from this height, as observed
from Mount Greylock, Mount Anthony, or the Majestic Dome.
Very often the highest summits, especially those of the Dome and the
Greylock group, are draped with rosy-tinged clouds and lowering veils of
mist at the sunrise hour. One of the rarest visions seen from our modern
Mount Œta occurs about six o’clock in the morning, frequently during the
months of June and July, when the whole valley of the Hoosac appears
filled with a perfect sea of billowy fog, the distant blue mountain peaks
rising above. With the golden lights of dawn falling upon this ocean of
beauty, one can trace twenty miles of fairy-sea, as the foaming fog
follows the serpentine windings of the Hoosac from its source under
Greylock, ever broadening toward the plains of Hoosac Falls and the hills
of Saratoga. Before ten o’clock the mist usually dissolves, or rises as
the sun burns forth.
In all my wanderings, I had kept an eye out for the leaves and
seed-capsules of the Ram’s-Head Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium
arietinum_), and had revisited the Amidon Woods, where Lorenna found the
first specimen for me, but without discovering any new plants. On Sunday,
the second day of July, a friend and myself drove to Pownal Centre.
We returned by the Gulf, or “Witch-Hollow” path,—a cross-town road
seldom travelled, although shaded and pleasant. Here the sounds of the
winds, breathing and reverberating through the narrow vales, then dying
mournfully in the distance, intimidated the early settlers, who, being
superstitious, attributed the sounds to the witches so prevalent in the
history of New England. To-day there are no more dreadful sounds in these
glens than the hoots of owls and the piping of frogs in the Chalk Pond
pools.
We were nearing the pond region. Just west of the road there is a
beautiful, ever-bubbling spring, known far and wide to tourists
sauntering to Mann Mountain beyond. From this I wished to get a draught
of delicious water for my friend, so I hitched the old horse to a tree
by the roadside. Somehow this morning I lost my bearings, and entered
the wrong ravine. I had supposed that I could find the spring in the
dark; but I penetrated the thicket a little north of the right place,
by the slab-bridge where, in rainy seasons, the water drains from the
hills. Hunting around, however, to learn where the spring lay, I stumbled
straight upon a little company of Ram’s-Head Lady’s Slippers. In my
pleasure and excitement, I exclaimed, “Here are Ram’s-Heads!” frightening
my friend so that she ran clear out of the thicket. She soon returned,
however, when assured that there was no danger, and admired the rare
little flock with me. There were only a dozen plants in the group, none
of course in blossom; but several bore plump seed-capsules, proving that
they had bloomed early in the season. I determined to return to this nook
another day.
The next morning I started off cross-lots, over the hills afoot, to my
sylvan shades, carrying my usual basket and kit of tools, with an added
two-quart pail, which I promised to fill with raspberries. These berries
were plentiful, I had observed, through the John-Fallow sheep pastures.
Here I found a spring trickling from the shelving slate rocks, and this
guided me through a meandering network of swamps, all the way to Cold
Spring, in Witch Hollow below.
Major frisked about among the fields, and we had a happy time sliding
down the dry and slippery pasture slopes. There, at the foot of the
hill, we entered a deep, dark woodland,—just Major and I, who are
faithful, congenial comrades. My constant hound is ever ready to follow
my footsteps, and if he chances to lose me, I soon hear his yelp on my
track. Dear old Major! I value you more than I tell you by these gentle
strokes,—you, whose searching instincts would find me out wherever I
might be, and whose keen scent of danger is my constant protection!
Everything was still in the hollow to-day, save for the croaking of the
bull-frogs and the buzzing of flies and humming of bees, echoing from
the pools and numerous flowers of Solomon’s Seal along the edges of the
swamp. It was noon when I reached my colony of Ram’s-Heads, and I was
glad to be sheltered in these cool glades this sweltering July day. I
took note near what species of trees my rare Cypripediums grew, and found
that they were rooted in loose leaf mould, from long decayed heaps of
pine branches and tree-tops, left by the woodman when the forest was
first hewn from these slopes. Here, also, stood crumbling stumps, and
prostrate trunks lay at full length, decaying in the marl and peat. Among
this mouldering soil was a pile of four-foot white birchwood—near some of
the best plants of Ram’s-Head, three of which bore maturing seed-pods.
Directly through the group, a wood-path wound around the hill from Cold
Spring toward the north, worn by the small wild animals of the forest.
[Illustration: =The Small Round-Leaved Orchis.= (_Habenaria Hookeriana._)
This species is closely related to the Large Round-Leaved Orchis
(_Habenaria orbiculata_) and _Habenaria oblongifolia_, with which it
grows in company.]
Just east of the plants I had found on Sunday, I discovered at least
fifty more, withdrawn to themselves, in aristocratic exclusiveness. I
lifted three of the oldest and largest plants, two of which bore large
seed-pods, taking them up carefully and with plenty of soil, so as not
to disturb the fibrous roots. The layer of leaf mould was loosely strewn,
and not so deep here as I had expected to find it. Scarcely three inches
beneath the surface, I came to a bright, whitish gravel. The spot was
situated on a sloping hillside, which seemed to surround a hollow among
the hills, where a glacial lake had formerly slept. It is called to-day
“Chalk Pond,” the water being whitish at times in the streams flowing
from the heart of the region. The soil was rich with unfathomable depths
of peat and marl in the lake bed below. Peat is formed by decaying moss,
ferns, and vegetable matter in general, while the marl, which lends a
chalky appearance to the water and gravel, comes from the crumbling and
decayed shells abounding in the soil. This loam seems to be valuable, and
the pond bed is now well drained for the purpose of selling the substance
as a fertilizer for lawns.
White birch, chestnut, pines, and nearer the pond meadow below, beautiful
elms towered skyward. From this corner I searched the hillsides to the
north, along the path. At the feet of some chestnut saplings, I found
the Small Round-Leaved Orchis (_Habenaria Hookeriana_). The plant was
young, and apparently had not put forth blossoms this summer. They appear
in early June in this region. Leaving the plant to study another year,
I sought the southern hillside, and came suddenly upon a sight which I
shall not soon forget. Before me stood the Great Round-Leaved Orchis
(_Habenaria orbiculata_), with its two huge, round, flat-lying leaves of
a soft emerald green, about eight inches long by seven wide. It bore a
tall, bracted spike of greenish-white flowers,—strange, fantastic shapes,
trimmed with spurs and hoods and capes. This spike of flowers rose
straight up from between the two round basal leaves. It was about two
feet high originally, but had been broken, doubtless by the hailstorms
of June. The common names of the Round-Leaved Orchises hereabout are
“Shin-plaster” and “Heal-all,” since they are applied to bruised shins,
and are used as plasters for weak lungs. Thoreau, in _Maine Woods_, gives
even larger dimensions of the Great Green Orchis found by him in the
vicinity of Mud Pond, Moosehead and Chamberlain Carries, Maine,—where he
reported it very common in July.
I sat for some time admiring this weird plant; when finding that it
had sown seed the former season, I decided to transport it to a garden
of civilization, to see if it would take kindly to cultivation. Then I
turned westward, following the sluggish yet sparkling stream down from
Cold Spring. At times the stream was almost hidden by moss, through which
it crept slowly.
This brook enters a large, open, meadow marsh,—the ancient lake bed
of which I have spoken before,—the Chalk Pond hollow. Since it is
now drained, it appears to be a promising soil in which to seek the
Purple-Fringed Habenarias in the proper season. I found the leaves of
a plant which I believe to have been that of one of the Purple-Fringed
Orchises, but from its producing no flowers this season I was not able
to designate it. Here, also, small ferns and luxuriant brakes were
sheltered amid the low sumach bushes and willows. Wild grape-vines
entwined the trunks of trees, reaching far into the tops of the high
elms. One immense elm had been blown over by some northeast hurricane,
which had quite recently swept through this hollow. The upturned roots of
this ruined tree had apparently grown about a deeply buried fellow in the
peat and marl, for they still retained the impression of the buried trunk
about which they had clung. In the mud and water from which the tree had
been torn, lay in its deep grave this log, bare of its outer bark, but
still sound and round. It was now well water-soaked, after having been so
long sealed from the air and light beneath the earth. How many centuries
it had been buried there, no one can guess. The now apparently aged elm
upon the surface had torn up several feet of earth as it fell. Forest
after forest had thus fallen, a new one rising over it, eventually to
give place to another, and itself to form a strata of mould, enriching
the soil of these bogs which yield so many floral treasures.
I did not remain in this meadow long, as it proved still too damp to walk
through grasses and sedges without water-tight boots. Coming out of this
place at the foot of the little ravine below the colony of Ram’s-Heads, I
ran upon numerous oblong, waxen, green leaves, which at first reminded me
of the similar leaves of the Pink Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium acaule_).
But on closer search for their seed-capsules, I found the fresh bracted
processes of a spike containing several ovaries instead of one, as in the
Moccasin-Flower. Evidently this plant was not a species of Cypripedium;
and although the scape was broken, enough of the alternating process of
twisting ovaries remained to assure me that I had found a colony of the
early and Showy Orchis (_Orchis spectabilis_), which is one of the first
species of orchids to bloom in New England. Indeed, it is said to open
the orchid season as early as May 19th, and is found with the Wake-Robins
and Arbutus, when the woods are otherwise bare and brown. I secured three
of the finest plants.
My basket was now laden with choice species, including those of the
Ram’s-Head, the Showy Orchis, and two species of Habenaria, a sister
genus of _Orchis spectabilis_. The locality had proven a treasure-ground
to me, for here were both the Great and the Small Round-Leaved Orchis
(_Habenaria orbiculata_ and _Habenaria Hookeriana_); while the Tall Green
Orchis (_Habenaria hyperborea_) dwells in the deeper bogs along the
stream.
The leaves of the Purple-Fringed Orchis (_Habenaria grandiflora_) are
hidden in the borders of the open meadow. I found a few plants of that
very rare orchid called Adder’s-Mouth (_Achroanthes unifolia_) seldom
if ever before collected in this town. The plants are so small and
inconspicuous that one may search long without seeing them. Two stood
among the select company of Ram’s-Heads, while others grew along a damp,
silent brook bed that had ceased to flow,—a ravine formed during spring
freshets and melting snows.
[Illustration: =The Showy Orchis.= (_Orchis spectabilis._)
Showing the plant nearly natural size. This species is closely allied
with the Early Spring Orchis (_Orchis mascula_) of England. It is the
most highly organized of our native orchids.]
This pigmy of the Orchid Family—with its pale and odorless flower and
its unassuming habit of concealing itself in the darkest recesses of our
forests and swamps—grows plentifully in its native haunts to the north.
I had searched long and closely for the last month, hoping to find
the Large Purple-Fringed Orchis. Thoreau says: “It is remarkable that
this, one of the fairest of all our flowers, should also be one of the
rarest—for the most part not seen at all.... The village belle never sees
this more delicate belle of the swamp.... A beauty reared in the shade of
a convent, who has never strayed beyond the convent bell. Only the skunk
or the owl, or other inhabitant of the swamp, beholds it.”[33]
The Yellow-Fringed Orchis follows later, blooming through August and
September,—the blossoming season of the flaming Cardinal-Flower, whose
brilliant coloring brightens the dark shades along streams in moist
woods. The Yellow-Fringed Habenarias are found growing with the Pitcher
Plant, and often fill the sphagnous swamps with a glowing mass of
orange-flamed torches. Gray considered them among our handsomest species
of Habenaria. They are abundant in swamps about New Haven, Connecticut,
while the White-Fringed Orchises seek the coast-lines of Massachusetts,
although also found sparingly in the highlands.
Species of Habenaria are called False Orchises, while species of Orchis
are known as True Orchises. These species are members of sister genera,
but all belong to the Orchid Family. There are but three True Orchises
found on the continent north of Mexico, while not less than forty-four
species of Habenaria are reported for the same area.
The genus of True Orchises comprises eighty species, distributed
throughout the temperate zone of the world; while of Habenaria there
are about five hundred species. _Orchis spectabilis_ and _Orchis
rotundifolia_ are found in Vermont. The latter is the rarer, and limited
in its range from northern New England to Greenland. The _Orchis
spectabilis_ ranges from Ontario southward to Georgia. The third species,
_Orchis aristata_, is endemic to the wooded regions of Alaska.
Our common Showy Orchis resembles the Early Spring Orchis (_Orchis
mascula_) of England, which Darwin never tired of praising. The high
organism distinguishes species of this genus as True Orchises. The
origin of this distinction lies in the complex structure of the organs
of fertilization. The stigmatic lobes, or female organs, and the anther
containing the pollinia or male substance in fertilizing, are enclosed
in this genus in a pouch or hooded fold above and within the anterior
portion of the orifice of the spur. In False Orchises, the stigma and
anther are naked, and their glands are exposed. They are also known
as Naked Gland Orchises. The more complex the structure, the more
highly organized becomes the species. _Orchis spectabilis_ displays a
marvellous intelligence in its mechanism for inviting fertilization and
cross-fertilization. The enclosure of the glands within the hooded pouch
protects the pollinia from rains or improper insects.
The moth finds a resting-place on the petaled platform, while he pushes
his tongue and head into the depths of the dainty spur attached to
the flower anteriorly. In doing this he forces his forehead against
the viscid lobes of the stigma, situated in the back, opposite to the
entrance of the spur. In pushing, as he must, to reach the nectar in
the twisting spur, he ruptures the interior membrane of the rostellum
above the orifice containing the pollinia. Each mass of this fertilizing
substance in this species contains viscid disks or handles, fastened
with elastic hair-like caudicles attached to the pollinia. When the
insect ruptures the cellular tissues of the anther, these disks shoot
out of their sockets, and fasten firmly to his head. As he flies away,
he possesses one or two pollinia, unique in their completeness. In
visiting the next spike of the Showy Orchis, he repeats the insertion
of his tongue and forehead in the spur of the nectary. The golden horn
of pollinum thus rubs against the viscid surface of the stigma, and
fertilization and cross-fertilization are brought about. The insect
thus accomplishes all that Nature has designed for the future of the
species, even if only a small portion of the pollinum is absorbed by the
attractive surface of the stigma. One mass fastened to the head of a moth
would, in this manner, fertilize several flowers.
According to Darwin, orchids with short-spurred nectaries are fertilized
by bees and flies; while those with long spurs are visited by moths and
butterflies with long proboscides.
The structure of various species calls for special insects to fertilize
and cross-fertilize them. The failure to attract the proper agencies
has led Nature slowly to change the organs of many orchids so that
self-fertilization might be accomplished. In this way, “an enormous
amount of extinction” must have taken place. A wide gap of obliteration
intervenes between species of Orchis and Cypripedium, the former being
the most highly organized and the latter the lowest, or abnormal species
of the Orchid Family.
The species included under the great genus Habenaria grow more abundantly
than any other on our continent. It is not unusual to find five or six
species of this genus in a neighborhood such as the Bogs of Etchowog
or Witch Hollow region. In the latter locality I found four species of
Habenaria, two of Cypripedium, one of Achroanthes, and one of Orchis,
making in all eight rare species for a very small area of swamp-land.
Soon after I reached home with my basket of roots, the front porch
exhibited a long row of pots and tin cans, where stood my transplanted
treasures, ultimately to be placed in the garden of a friend in New Haven.
It has always been a source of wonder that Thoreau did not find more
species of the Orchid Family in the conifer swamps in the Maine woods.
His journeys made in July, through pine and cedar and mud-pond regions,
should have led to the discovery of more species than he mentions.
He writes of but three species of Habenaria, one of Ladies’ Tresses
(_Gyrostachys_), and one of Twayblade (_Leptorchis liliifolia_).
To be sure, he found the Great Round-Leaved Habenaria and the two
Purple-Fringed species in abundance, but there is no record of a
Cypripedium in his data save as reported for Concord.
Species of Orchis and Habenaria are among the oldest orchids known
in the records of ancient herbalists and naturalists. Both of our
native Purple-Fringed Orchises (_Habenaria grandiflora_ and _Habenaria
psycodes_) are closely allied with _Orchis morio_, found so abundantly in
the fields of England. Pliny, in the time of Christ, knew this plant as
_Orchis_ or _Serapias_, which Fée has identified with the _Orchis morio_
now known in Europe. This species is more nearly related to our Small
Purple-Fringed Orchis than to the larger species.
The origin of the name _Orchis_ arose from the ancient lore of classical
mythology. Orchis, a son of a rural god named Patellanus, failed to
observe the rules of politeness while attending a festival of Bacchus,
and offended one of the priestesses with his rude behavior. He was
reported to the attendants for punishment, who in anger tore him to
pieces. His father Patellanus, and his mother, that sweet nymph Acolasia,
sought the co-deities’ influence, who, it is said, urged the superior
gods to command a flower to rise from the earth perpetuating the name
and memory of their son. Thus arose the strange untamable species of this
family.
The species now known under genus Orchis and Habenaria had various common
names in ancient literature. There were five kinds of Orchis which the
Greeks commonly called Cynorchis; this became in Latin _Testiculus canis_
and _Testiculus morionis_, and later in England, _Orchis morio_. Satyrion
was also an ancient common English name for the species of Cynorchis
known to the Greek apothecaries.
In the sixteenth century the Purple-Fringed Orchises of England were
known as _Satyrion Royall_, _Noble Satyrion_, _Palma Christi_, and
_Royall Standergrasse_. In fact, all species of orchids in 1578 were
described under the group of plants designated as _Standlewort_, or
_Standergrasse_.[34]
Shakespeare mentions them in _Hamlet_ as “Long-Purples” and “Dead-Men’s
Fingers.” Tennyson also speaks of them as Long-Purples in _A Dirge_.
Rev. Mr. Ellacomb, in _Robinson’s Garden_, alludes to these orchises as
“Dead-Men’s Thumbs.”
The Great Royall Satyrion of England and Germany, known to Dodoens and
Lyte in 1578, was found in meadows and moist woods. The flowers were
light purple, and gave forth sweet perfume. The roots were described
as double, like a pair of hands, and each palm was parted into four or
five small roots like fingers; one palm being withered and spongy, the
other full and sound. From this peculiarity of form many of the names
were undoubtedly derived. There was also another small purple species of
Royall Satyrion, with a perfume like musk. The roots were like the larger
purple Royall Satyrion.
[Illustration: =The Large Purple-Fringed Orchis.= (_Habenaria
grandiflora._)
Closely allied to _Habenaria psycodes_ of New England, and to the English
Long Purples (_Orchis Morio_) of ancient literature. They are mentioned
by Shakespeare in _Hamlet_.
“_There with fantastic garlands did she come_
_Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples._”
_“Hamlet,” Act IV., Sc. 7._
From lithograph in Meehan’s _Native Flowers and Ferns of the United
States_, 1: 1878. By permission.]
The roots of Royall Satyrion were used as remedies against many diseases.
“If an inch or as much as one’s _thombe_ of this roote be pound and
ministered in wine, it is good for many diseases,” writes Dr. Nicholas
Nicols, according to Dodoens and Lyte in 1578.[35]
These orchises have figured in literature from time unknown, and although
shy in New England, seeking the haunts of moose and bear, they delight
still to grow in hearing of the cathedral bells in old England, where
they are the common flowers of meadow and borders of corn-fields.
The proverb, that all things come round to him who waits, may for the
orchis-hunter be paraphrased rather, “All things come round to him who
tramps.” I was destined sooner or later, by lonely lake or mountain bog,
to find the Purple-Fringed Orchis for which I had so long searched.
Later in the season, on July 8th, I visited Notch Brook, North Adams, a
stream flowing down through the northern Notch Valley. Wandering past
the beautiful Cascade, I slowly explored the wooded vales among the
Ragged Mountains. The afternoon was sultry; the sun pouring down upon the
parched sod of the rocky pasture-land had shrivelled up the grasses, and
now the bushes themselves were turning brown, and the leaves curling up
on their edges. Through the trembling haze, partially due to the vile
smoke of civilization, which arose from the various factories in the
City, the sun appeared as a round, red ball of fire.
I had chosen a poor day for walking, but there were cool, shady retreats
on the way, where I could find rest and shelter. I clambered down from
the slopes of Aurora’s Hill, into the shadow of the valley’s smoke,
crossing the sluggish stream of the Ashuilticook, by way of the iron
bridge in Flag’s Meadows. I climbed to the swamps along the Ragged Hills
leading to The Notch. Here the slopes of pasture-lands above State Street
are clothed with bushes and brambles, through which rough, stony paths
wind, where dwell the children of sunny Italy. Witt’s Ledge of lime and
marble stone lies along this swell. These rough paths, with wooden steps
leading summitward, were new to me.
Upon the brow of the hill was a small pond hidden at the head of an
extensive swamp, amid willows and lush tangled grasses, where little lads
were bathing. It was one of those wild mountainous pasture-lands where
blackberry briars and sweet-fern run riot, and where the pepper-bushes
and tall brakes shed forth an aromatic perfume under the full blaze of
the summer sun. About the drier portions of the swamp were well-worn
cow-paths, winding irregularly about the hummocks and boulders; and along
the borders grew many familiar weeds and vines amid the swails and flags.
[Illustration: =The Blackberry Blossoms from Mount Œta, Pownal, Vermont.=]
My boots being high and waterproof, I waded warily through the coarse
lush grasses and cat-tail flags, encountering many deep pools. As I
pushed forward, my heart sang in the very joy of living:
Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,
When our mother Nature laughs around;
When even the deep blue heavens look glad,
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?[36]
At the west end of the cow-path I came suddenly upon one tall,
Purple-Fringed Orchis. This was my first good fortune in finding this
beautiful species, although I have since found many. I stood long in
wonderment and silent adoration before this fragrant beauty of the weird
and lonely bogland, rearing its strange fringed petals high above the
common swamp grasses. Searching about to the north and south, I found a
colony of six more spikes, which assured me that I would be justified in
taking the first plant I had found; and placing it with the utmost care
in my crowded vasculum, I then proceeded mountainward.
On the very brow of the hill I wound around to the left, entering the
wood-road leading to the Notch Valley. A beautiful cold spring gushes
out in the heart of this wood, under the hill at the right, near the
Cascade path. I freshened my flowers here, and hurried on to the famous
foot-bridge over Notch Brook, plunging on down through the hemlock wood
to get a hurried view of the Cascade below.
As I returned homeward over the heated fields, I found the atmosphere
very exhausting; and the flowers, although protected in my botanizing
can, were wilted. Measuring the broad expanse that intervened between
me and the hill of Aurora’s Lake, the journey seemed interminable. The
distance was finally covered, however, and both my fatigue and the
fact that I was late for tea were forgotten in the ecstasy of having
found that first Purple-Fringed Orchis. This spike grew, and every bud
expanded, until within a few days it became beautiful indeed, giving
forth its delicate fragrance, and proving itself the prize I had esteemed
it, as I lifted it from the dark earth of the bogland of northern
Berkshire.
IX
Over the Huckleberry Plains
Thou shalt gaze, at once,
Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds,
And swarming roads, and there on solitudes
That only hear the torrent and the wind.
BRYANT, _Monument Mountain_.
On July 17th, two days before departing from the Hoosac Valley, I was
guided to a group of swamps lying along the summit of the Domelet. The
brow of this mountain is yearly devastated by forest fires, after which
it appears quite barren, save for the trees and bushes protected in the
swamps. A few tall trees, branchless and blackened, stand as sentinels
about the huckleberry plains. But soon the young and tender growth of
oak, chestnut, and birch springs up on these rocky ridges, while the
clearings everywhere are carpeted with low blueberry bushes.
Between the Domelet and the Dome lies a valley known as “Rocky Hollow.”
The ledges of rock, walling it about, bear deep erosions in evidence
of the Ice Age, when a gigantic glacier once crowned and rounded the
Dome. The formation of these deep vales lying at its base is due to the
moraines which flowed down from the ice-capped heights.
The little swamp-like pockets along the summit of the Domelet, where
luxuriant trees locate the moisture of springs, were formed, perchance,
when a deeper lake rolled over this peak.
In ascending the Domelet, we drove around the northern brow of the
mountain, up by the County Road,—frequently called the “Dummy Road” in
Pownal, because a deaf and dumb man once lived in the vicinity. Soon
we turned off eastward, beyond the Dummy Farm, through the low bushes,
until we came to a shady vale. We unhitched our horses from the wagon,
and fastened them to trees; then we proceeded to explore the hills and
plains, carrying pails for berries, and a basket and spade for collecting
roots. The flora of this region appeared luxuriant all along the road,
as well as over the ledges and plains. I found great numbers of plants
of the Pink Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium acaule_). The unusually large
leaves were of a deep dark green, with marked veining. Many stems bore
seed-pods, which were the largest capsules for this species I have ever
seen, being an inch and a half long, with circumference in proportion.
The beautiful emerald-green leaves and bright berries of the lily,
_Clintonia borealis_, were almost as common as the piles of sphagnum
and the tall brakes and ferns on the edges of these swamps; yet
everything about recorded the ravages of the recent hailstorms. Very few
seed-capsules could have remained to mature their seed this season, as
most of the plants were either badly bruised, or broken from the root,
causing the ovary of the flower to droop and wither. The low huckleberry
bushes, known as the dwarf black species (_Gaylussacia dumosa_), were
also damaged by the hailstorms, and were without fruit.
[Illustration: =The Yellow Clintonia= (_Clintonia borealis_),
=Rattlesnake Brook Region, Mount Œta, Pownal, Vermont=.]
We came upon numbers of trees shattered by lightning, and blackened pine
stubs and “turnovers” mingled among the beautiful evergreens of the
tangled swamp. Low blueberry bushes, with rich heaps of ashes about their
roots, covered the rolling, rock-bound plains, as far as one could see.
Huckleberries usually thrive in the trail of forest fires. Indeed, the
spring and autumn fires are often started by the huckleberry venders for
the sole purpose of securing a better yield of fruit for supplying the
market. These berries are among the small fruits which have not thus far
taken kindly to cultivation, as has nearly every other wild berry in the
markets to-day.
We found the third swamp eastward marked by the odd spires of the Scrub
Pine (_Pinus divaricata_), and the Red Pine (_Pinus resinosa_), which is
often wrongly called Norway Pine. These evergreen trees were known to
Theophrastus before Christ. There were two kinds, the wild and the garden
trees. Many species of each are described, the pines and spruces not
being distinguished from each other.
I observed also many Dwarf Black or Double Spruces (_Picea
Mariana_),—very dark green trees with pretty cones. The name for this
tree originated with Theophrastus. It became in the Latin _Pinus Mariana_.
Frequently I saw a lone Balsam-Fir tree,—_Abies balsamea_. The name
_Abies_ comes down to us from remote antiquity, since this tree grew
in Greece, and was valued by the learned physicians before Christ for
the balsamic resin found in the bark of young trees. Matthiolus and
Peter Bellon described this substance as bitter and aromatic, similar
to citron-pills. In England, this resin was known to the writers of the
sixteenth century as the Turpentine of Venice. In Canada, where this tree
is abundant, it is called “Balm-of-Gilead Fir,” or “Canada Balsam.” It is
common on the summit of the Dome. The powerful balsamic fluid drawn from
it is now used medicinally. This species resembles the black spruce, save
that it is of a silvery-green color, giving forth its peculiar fragrance,
and producing small blisters on its trunk and branches, which the spruce
does not.
Cedar is not plentiful in the Hoosac Valley region, our only species
being American Arbor Vitæ (_Thuja occidentalis_), often called white
cedar. Northward this tree forms extensive cedar swamps, which are rich
haunts for species of _Orchidaceæ_.
On the border of the third swamp, and in the heart of it as well, grow
High Huckleberry bushes (_Vaccinium corymbosum_). Blueberries are known
in New England as huckleberries, and this common swamp species grows very
tall. These bushes before me were over twelve feet in height. The Dwarf
Low Blueberry (_Vaccinium vacillans_) grows from one to two feet high.
The Early Dwarf species (_Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum_) is from six to
fifteen inches in height, and produces our earliest market blueberries or
huckleberries. The late Dwarf Low Blueberry ripens late in July.
The giant bushes in the swamp were laden with both green and ripe fruit.
The cadet-blue berries hanging side by side with the soft velvety
crimson-purple fruit of Shad-trees (_Amelanchier Canadensis_) made
a pretty dash of color among the rich greens. Most country lads are
familiar with the mountains at this season, and to go “shad-berrying” is
one of their pleasures. In Pownal one hears of shadberry pies and cakes
with happy anticipations.
These berries are fresh and sweet, eaten direct from the bending
branches, but they become as bitter as medicine after being gathered
for any length of time. Their white flowers often appear early in April
and May, and brighten the waste places along with the Pigeon Cherry
blossoms,—better known as Wild Red Cherries (_Prunus Pennsylvanica_).
The flowers of the latter tree are also white, producing small light
red cherries, which delighted flocks of returning pigeons before their
extermination. The generic name _Prunus_ is the Latin for plum or prune,
derived from the Greek for all species commonly known as Sloes, Bullies,
and Snags. The species of Prunus and Amelanchier are members of the Rose
Family, as their miniature rose-blossoms indicate.
The original designations of huckleberry, or whortleberry, are also of
ancient derivation. The species of Vaccinium were known to Virgil under
the title of _Vacinia_,[37] because their berries were little. The
ancient writers recognized the black, white, and red fruited species. The
white was seldom seen, however, while the red also was rare. The true
English name for these berries in the sixteenth century was “whorts”
or “whortleberries.” The black whorts grew commonly in many woods in
England, in June and July.
After wandering through these swamps on the Domelet for two or three
hours, and securing some fine roots of the Pink Moccasin-Flower for
the New Haven garden, we slowly walked back toward our horses in the
shaded vale, up and over ledges and rolling hills, passing a ridge of
outcropping marble. We finally sat a while and drank in the cool mountain
breeze, catching here and there through the trees the varied panorama
of the great world below and the clouds above us. Distant sounds from
human abodes rose to our ears faintly,—such as the engine whistle of the
“Wild-cat” Express as it wound through the deep-cut valley of the Hoosac,
nearly a thousand feet below us, westward beyond Mount Œta. On one of
these marble ridges, along the plains, I found several plants of the
Large Round-Leaved Orchis (_Habenaria orbiculata_).
We drove homeward by way of White Oaks Road,—southward along the entire
summit of the Domelet,—getting an excellent view of the Hoosac and Green
Rivers, following their serpentine windings about the hills and vales
far below us near Williamstown. White Oaks is a remote corner of Pownal,
lying, however, partly in Williamstown in northern Berkshire, a region
locally noted for the earliest arbutus blossoms.
In nearly all the swamps I have visited, I have found a long procession
of flowers marching close upon each other through the seasons,—from the
trailing arbutus and the snowy dogwood blossoms in early April, to the
golden-rod and asters of the late October days. Even as late as December
8th I have found the dainty dandelions and violets running wild with
glee, only to be frozen before sunrise the following morning. It can be
said that in some seasons different flowers bloom nearly every month, in
the Hoosac Highlands, if the _Transcript’s_ reports be true.
“On February 1, 1900, some trailing arbutus was brought from the woods.
There is usually a little strife in the spring for the distinction
of bringing these first flowers, but Mr. Briggs has forestalled all
the flower hunters this year by his January discovery, which is most
unusual.”[38]
I have collected March arbutus in the White Oaks as early as the 12th,
although never in January or February. Indeed, there come many arbutus
days long before April and May, if only we go abroad to realize them in
the warm, sunny glens among the Taconic Hills, where the cold winds never
blow in March.
SECOND SEASON
X
Westville Swamps and Mount Carmel, Connecticut
When, formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some farm
which I had contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found
that I was attracted solely by a few square rods of impermeable
and unfathomable bog.... That was the jewel which dazzled
me.—THOREAU, _Excursions_.
May the 1st I departed from New York, to find in bloom many of the
earlier flowers that I had missed last year in the Hoosac Highlands.
I followed much the same route through Connecticut as I had taken the
season previous. The country was aglow with the subtle breath of spring
sunshine, that inspires the soul of earth to rise and sprinkle her fields
with pulsating life and song. I started out alone to explore the Bogs of
Westville, where the dainty Grass-Pinks and Pogonias would later bloom.
There is much diversity of soil about New Haven: it proves a
meeting-ground for Southern and Northern species of plant life. The
swampy regions of the Great Salt Meadows produce a foreign vegetation
that emigrates to our shores; while the rocky ridges of the hills about
the City furnish hiding ground for rare ferns and flowers found far
northward.
I rode to the end of the car line, near which I turned off into a
thicket, and over a bridge above the milldam. On either hand broad fields
of marsh-land stretched out to meet the low, rolling hills. To the right,
a path led up the slopes of a cow-pasture, along a little stream to West
Rock. The damp hillside was carpeted with Innocence or Bluets (_Houstonia
cærulea_), and numerous colonies of violets; and amid the moss-grown
hillocks, in the woods, the Dog’s-Tooth Lily (_Erythronium Americanum_)
nodded its yellow bell. This lily, so long designated Dog’s-Tooth Violet,
is a plant having a broad continental range,—found from Nova Scotia to
Florida, and from Maine to Arkansas. In the South it blooms in March, in
the North in May. It grows not only in the low coast hills and valleys,
but is known to thrive at an altitude of 5500 feet in Virginia and in the
North.
The leaves of Dog’s-Tooth Lily resemble a species of Orchis known to
Dioscorides as _Satyrion Erythronium_, from which Linnæus in 1753 coined
the present generic name _Erythronium_, signifying “red,” for the genus
of Dog’s-Tooth Lilies. Wherever the appended term of “Violet” originated
for these lilies is not known. According to Frederick H. Blodgett: “In
one of the old botanies in the library of the Agricultural Department
(Washington), there is a colored plate, illustrating the European species
with the name _Viola dens-canis_, with pen notes, giving the later and
more modern names also.”[39] That the plant was always considered a
lily, however, instead of a violet is evident.
[Illustration:
“_White, innocent twigs of apple, idly swaying,_
_Shed a suave fragrance on the flattered breeze._”
JOHN S. VAN CLEVE.]
Dr. Rembert Dodoens, as early as 1578, thus described it: “This low base
herbe, hath, for the most part but two leaves, speckled with great red
spots, betwixt which springeth up a little tender stalke or stem with one
floure at the top hanging downeward, which hath certaine small leaves
growing together like an arch or haute, and like the wild lily.” (The
_Amarillis_ of the Spaniards.) “The names of this herbe now are called
_Denticulus canis_ and _Dens caninus_, and others call it _Satyrion
Erythronium_, wherewithall notwithstanding it has no similitude.”[40]
It was known to Dioscorides as _Lilium sylvestre_, and Dodoens remarks
that “It may well be called such,” since the flower, when “it hangs
downeward toward the grounde, is much like the wild lilies, saving it is
smaller.”[41]
Dioscorides (23-77 A.D.) knew this plant as _Ephemeron non lethale_,
which was also known in Latin as _Lilium sylvestre_.
Dodoens therefore wrote that if Dog’s-Tooth be _Ephemeron_, as it
seemed to be, the essence extracted from its root by boiling water,
according to Dioscorides, was good for the teeth. But the name was more
likely suggested by the fact that the bulbous root is shaped like a
canine tooth. The appended “violet” originated, perhaps, with children,
since this lily blooms in early springtime with violets, bluets, marsh
marigolds, and arbutus.
The names of all plants among the early Greeks and Romans originated
from the shapes of the flowers, leaves, or roots, and also from their
medicinal properties. Dioscorides knew another species which he
designated _Satyrion Erythronium_ or _Dioscorides Satyrion_, signifying
Red Satyrion,—known to the ancient Syrians. Satyrion was the ancient
“shop” name for species of Orchis.
Without doubt our generic name for Dog’s-Tooth (_Erythronium_) is a
corruption from the Red-spotted Satyrion, whose leaves became confused
with _Lilium sylvestre_. Burroughs has remarked that bulbs of lilies in
general lie near the surface of the ground. The bulbs of _Erythronium_
are often found at a depth of eight inches or more in the earth, however,
according to the age of the lily. The young plant often produces but one
leaf, and its bulb is loosely attached to the moss on the surface, while
the older plants produce two leaves, their bulbs each season sinking
deeper into the soil.
Many common names have been suggested by botanists to replace the
seemingly inappropriate name of Dog’s-Tooth Violet. While the appended
Violet is misapplied, as we observe, the name Dog’s-Tooth is of ancient
origin, and really has more appropriateness than does the generic name
_Erythronium_, since none of our species produce red flowers. The name
Dog’s-Tooth, therefore, was purposely dropped in the _Illustrated Flora_
of Northeastern North America, and the name Yellow Adder’s-Tongue
substituted for the species. There is also an Adder’s-Tongue Fern
(_Ophioglossum vulgatum_). We therefore see that the re-establishing
of the former and ancient name, Dog’s-Tooth Lily, for species of
_Erythronium_ is to be preferred, not only according to the moral rule of
priority, but because it is actually the legal common name.
The Westville Swamps were sparkling with these yellow lily-bells, while
in the woods along the sluggish stream, the Marsh Marigolds—often called
American Cowslips—were holding up their golden goblets to be filled with
morning dew. Farther up the stream, near a rude plank bridge in the
pasture roadway, I found a baby turtle basking in the sunshine. He was no
larger than the hollow of my palm. The little fellow was too frightened
to tumble off his stony couch and run for the stream. He sat still and
eyed me distrustfully. He drew in his head and toes, and I lifted him
gently in my hand, placing him in a paper bag among the flowers I had
gathered. I intended him for a surprise in the school aquarium.
Climbing far up the side of West Rock, I looked over the Woodbridge
fields and toward West Peak, near Meriden. In the dim distance the
Giant’s form was outlined against the horizon at Mount Carmel. This
mountain assumes the form of a gigantic Egyptian mummy. The hands are
folded across the breast, and the head and feet are stretched in stiff
dignity—so to remain through the ages.
Among the wooded hills and vales below, the cloud-shadows chased each
other to the distant mountains far beyond. That pile of granite upon the
brow of West Rock, designated in history as Judge’s Cave, stood guard
over the hills about me. Farther off, toward Westville, many a roof
glistened and peered out among the newly leaved trees of the hillsides.
One of them was that of Ik Marvel’s home, where perchance he had smoked
the dream pipes of his _Bachelor’s Revery_. Smoke now curled above the
chimney-tops, full of the drowsiness of May mornings.
The song of thrushes and orioles amid the bushes burst joyously upon
me, and during the interludes I heard the hum of bees and the distant
murmurings of streams. Butterflies sailed by, flashing their brilliant
colors in the sunlight, and the air was laden with the delicate fragrance
of early woodlands. It was a day marked by hope and promise. Who can
forget those fields of spring where forget-me-nots and violets bloom?
During the afternoon of this glorious day, I journeyed to Mount Carmel
beyond Lake Whitney. The old canal from Northampton to New Haven formerly
passed along this valley, and although the channel is partly filled in,
the towpath still remains, and is well-trodden. I followed it from the
end of the car-line, until I reached an elevated ledge of rock to the
right. This little hill, clothed with white cedars and junipers, lies
beneath the stern brow of the Giant, whose face is plainly outlined
against the sky far above the village.
After exploring the ridge hereabout, and finding it covered with
Columbine in bud, I descended to the hollow, along the stream. In the
rocky crevices at the farthest end of the hill, where the midday sun
poured down upon the colony, I found the Columbine flowers in full bloom.
I pushed my hand beneath the matted soil, and the plant with roots
entire loosened and was easily lifted. Poison Ivy grew about over the
rocks, warning me to be cautious. I discovered the Dutchman’s Breeches
(_Bicuculla Cucullaria_), but they were faded and nearly fallen. I
observed here near the Columbine also another species of the genus not
often seen in this locality. It is known commonly as the Bleeding-Heart
(_Bicuculla eximia_), formerly designated generically as _Fumaria_. It
grows in rocky places, especially in southern New York. I collected it
once about Montclair, New Jersey, along the Orange Mountains, and on
the borders of Bronx Park, New York City, and in the vicinity of Mount
Vernon. This species belongs more especially southward, extending to
Georgia and Tennessee, flowering from May until September. There are
about fourteen species of this genus found in North America and Western
Asia. Three of this number are reported for the Atlantic Region of
North America. The third species is known as Squirrel-Corn (_Bicuculla
Canadensis_), and is very similar to the Dutchman’s Breeches, save that
the plant is smaller.
While waiting for the car at Lake Whitney Junction, on my return to New
Haven, I opened the iron gate and wandered along the wooded edges of the
shore. I soon distinguished that homely weed of our old dooryard walls
and tin-can waste-heaps—the Cat-Mint or Catnip. I gathered some tender
shoots for pussy Yale. The name _Catnip_ is of ancient origin, derived
from the Latin, _Nepete_, the name of an Etrurian city. Our native plant
is of European origin. Dodoens, in 1578, writes of this plant: “In shops
it is called _Nepita_; in England _Pep_, and _Cat-Mint_, in French _Herbe
de Chat_.” The name of our single species is to-day _Nepeta Cataria_.
There are about one hundred and fifty native species of this group of
plants found in Europe and Asia.
This family of Mints was known to the ancients as _Calamint_ or
_Calamintha_, and included in Dodoens’ day four or five species described
by the Greeks, each of them having several names marked by different
medicinal virtues. The first kind was called Mountain Calamint; the
second was known as Wild Pennyroyal, and the third variety as Cat’s-Mint
or Cat’s-Herbe,—just described as _Nepeta_. The Wild Pennyroyal of the
ancients resembled the cultivated species at that time also, which was
known in England, during 1500, as Podding-Grasse or Pudding-Grass. Pliny
attributed twenty-five medicinal and mystical properties to Pennyroyal,
in Christ’s day, while Dodoens and Lyte mention fourteen uses of the
herb in 1578. Xenocrates prescribed “a branch of Penny-Royall wrapped in
wool,” and placed beneath the bedclothes as a remedy against malignant
fevers.
The Mints in general were called in ancient apothecary shops _Mentha_.
This group of plants was known to Theophrastus, and named _Mentha_, from
a nymph fabled in classical literature as having been changed into this
plant by the jealous Proserpine.
Yale was delighted with the _Herbe de Chat_, and scented spring and the
cat’s heal-all indeed in these tender sprays, rolling and purring over
the leaves like a tiger, until at last, soothed, he fell a-napping.
The next morning, May 2d, I started for the Berkshire Highlands, where
I arrived in the afternoon. I remained on Aurora’s Hill in North Adams
about a week. I was too early for orchid flowers, and the arbutus was
still in bloom. These were the real arbutus days here, in spite of their
breaking the record now and then by blooming in February. I soon left the
slopes of North Adams for Pownal Hills. I found them bleak and cold, and
that here, too, I was ahead of all species of the Orchid Family.
I made several excursions to the heart of Rattlesnake Swamp and
Rattlesnake Ledge, between May 7th and 15th, searching for Trailing
Arbutus. I courted the Swamp of Oracles and the Glen of Comus, watching
the buds unfold. The woods were bare and leafless, the paths and
dry-brook beds were flooded with sunshine. There is a desolate expression
to these deep swamps in early spring, before the tender green leaves of
trees and budding flowers burst forth. The birds, however, are here,
and their song tells us that it is spring instead of the Indian summer
of late autumn. These awakening days of the sleeping woodlands reminded
one of the death of the flowers in November. Equally sad is the birth
and death of the flowers. The sod steams with the warm southern sunlight
pouring upon it until, behold, a week later the green, luxuriant foliage
hides all the rocky paths in dense shades, and sprinkles dainty stars
and clinging vines over all the ruins of the autumn’s faded stalks and
leaves. May holds greater charm and more silent mysteries than the
overflowing joy of full-grown June.
I wandered on through the winding paths, finding them draped with
mosses and Goldthread blossoms and Painted Trillium. I continued daily
to search the woods through and through for the first sight of the
Pink Moccasin-Flower. I found three species of _Cypripedium_ on May
15th, and was a little curious to observe how the race would end in
their unfolding. There were the rare Ram’s-Head, the Pink and the Large
Yellow Moccasin-Flowers in bud. The Pink Cypripedium was the first
to open, upon the 19th, while on the same day also the Large Yellow
Moccasin-Flower burst into bloom, dropping its long, twisting side petals
gracefully beside the stump of a hemlock tree fallen across Ball Brook.
The Ram’s-Head, which is supposed to be the earliest _Cypripedium_ to
bloom, was not so fortunate. Venturing where it stood among the Amidon
Pines one sunny morning, I found the bud still sheathed in the tender
green bract-like leaf, laid low and withering upon the ground beside the
ruined stem. I picked it up and wondered what or who could have brought
about this tragedy. The bract, containing the bud, appeared cut from the
stem as with a keen-edged knife. As I held it, I observed a large worm
concealed within the plicate folds of the bracted leaf, amid the musky
sweetness of the bud. It was round and emerald green, and unlike most
worms was possessed of a great degree of spryness; for before my senses
were astir, it had dropped to the ground, wriggling out of sight among
the leaves and earth at my feet. I poked about, hoping to follow its
trail, but to no avail.
[Illustration: =The Woodman’s Road through Rattlesnake Swamp, Mount Œta,
Pownal, Vermont.=
“_These dim-aisled forests His cathedrals, where_
_The pale nun Silence tiptoes, velvet-shod,_
_And Prayer kneels with tireless, parted lids._”
ELLA HIGGINSON.]
That this rare _Cypripedium_ has a vile destroyer in this worm, is
evident. I felt that I should like to know more about the worm’s life,
and why it seeks the rarest species of _Cypripedium_ in North America to
feast upon. Perhaps this may account for this flower’s rarity in Pownal,
as well as throughout its continental range. I have observed the worm
among the Ram’s-Heads in Amidon’s Pines during the past two seasons.
The budded plants of this species in Witch Hollow were also blasted in
embryo this season. The two buds observed turned brown and withered on
the stem, while yet very tiny, leaving the bract perfectly intact. Some
plants, however, were untouched by the destroying worm. They were without
doubt too young to bloom, as it requires four or five seasons before
seedling Cypripediums produce perfect blossoms in their native haunts.
The seeds of orchids are minute, mostly “spindle shaped,” are found in
great numbers, and resemble fine saw-dust. The ovules of the Orchid
Family mature slowly, and as far as scientific observations count, in
the tests made with the cultivated species, it is said the seeds are a
year in coming to maturity. These fertile seeds need several months in
which to germinate, requiring, as will be seen, some years to produce
seedlings old enough to blossom from the self-sowing capsules of our
wild native orchids. Furthermore, a certain temperature and continuous
moisture are absolutely necessary to produce seedlings. Our variable
Northern climate is one of the natural causes of hindrance to the
production of native seedlings of this sensitive family. Continuous
moisture does not prevail long enough to promote perfect germination
of the thousands of seeds annually produced. They die in embryo from
lack of moisture during dry seasons; or if developed, are frozen out
in the ice-capped swamps by our long, harsh winters; or in the tender
seasons of their seedling-hood the following years, are dwarfed and die
from drought. This, in part, is the explanation of the lack of natural
seedlings in our native orchid haunts. Adding to this the destructiveness
of man, the beasts of the fields, worms, and storms, and the tardiness of
insects in fertilization, a hard struggle lies in the perpetuation of the
family’s future generations.
Orchids are spoken of as the “weeds of the tropics”; notwithstanding
their devastation by the present orchid craze,—which far outstrips the
tulip mania in Holland two hundred and fifty years ago,—in regions where
continuous heat and moisture prevail, germination of their fertile seeds
is rapid and natural.
XI
May Showers and White Moccasin-Flowers
If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day,
he is in danger of being regarded a loafer; but if he spend his
whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making
earth bare before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and
enterprising citizen.—THOREAU, _Letters_.
There is something charming about an unwearied rain in spring. I chose
a day upon which rain was falling to journey through the swamps,
observing my orchid buds. The clouds would lift now and then with sudden
brightening, although the gentle patter of the rain was constant. The
wind scarcely stirred the leaves. Nature was quiet in her weeping, as a
heart that has a grievance which it does not care to share with any one.
The meadows grew green, the buds expanded, and the heart of May began to
pulsate and sing new songs.
I started out to visit the Glen of Comus, but found the underbrush too
laden with rain. I then decided to go through the fields and seek the
Chalk Pond colonies. Over the hills lowered a heavy fog, which, as the
rain slackened, would for a time lift again, showing the blue peaks in
the distance. I turned westward from the glen, through Amidon’s Pines.
I had soon passed beyond the limits of this sheltering wood, making a
gradual ascent through the raspberry pastures of John-Fallow.
The higher I climbed the harder it poured. However, I arrived among the
low white birch saplings and berry bushes. Here I managed to shake the
rain off them, becoming as bedraggled as though I had waded in a stream.
My umbrella began to leak, and my cap and hair were being soaked, the
water actually running down my face. Entering the deeper underwood of
birches, I aroused a flock of sheep and their lambs. They ran bleating
after me, asking for salt. A mother followed me closely, stamped the
earth with her tiny feet, showing her petulance and fear; although she
did not turn and run from me as I ventured nearer, but rubbed her nose
against my hand.
I now began descending the western slopes of John-Fallow, and was in
sight of the woods closing about Witch Hollow. Upon entering the thicket,
I soon found my colonies of _Orchis spectabilis_, which were not yet
unfolded, although it was May 20th. The Cypripediums had come in far
ahead of them this season.
The group of Ram’s-Head also disappointed me, the buds having been
blasted in embryo. The plants, however, looked healthy and promising.
Chilled through as I was on my way out of the woods, I thought of
stopping at the nearest house on Butternut Lane for a drink of hot
milk. I refrained, however, because of my fog-covered garments and
the curiosity I might arouse in the neighborhood. Onward I trudged
another mile or two, up through the pastures, across the old Welch Farm,
following the grass-grown road that originally led from Mount Œta to the
valley of the Hoosac, during Revolutionary days.
I had been out about four hours, and it was time I sought shelter, since
I had waded through the tall grasses and bushes, regardless of the
rain upon their leaves. Once in the house, I realized the comfort of
possessing warm, dry garments.
On May 23d I made a journey to Rattlesnake Swamp. Arbutus was still in
blossom near the hemlocks,—late clusters, indeed, hiding in the moss at
the feet of small spruces, where the ice and snow had lingered latest.
The children in District Fourteen delight in surprising me with strange
flowers. Among these I frequently find rare species of plants to name
and identify for them. A delicate spray of the Purple-Flowered Clematis
was brought to me recently. This vine is rare hereabout, growing only
in rocky woods about the Rabbit Plain, and along the Gulf Road of Witch
Hollow.
Children in the country districts are the first nature students in
spring. In May and June the woods and fields become veritable classrooms
in which Nature alone presides as instructor. A dense oak and pine forest
formerly sheltered the vale near the schoolhouse, where the children
seldom dared to wander without their teacher. The wood was dark and full
of the twilight shades of the virgin forest trees of our New England
hills.
In May, many seasons ago, the Purple-Flowered Clematis (_Atragene
Americana_) grew abundant in the heart of this rocky wood, covering, in
one instance, a bush six feet high with its graceful vine. This plant
is rare from Maine to Minnesota. It ranges northward to Hudson Bay, and
southward to Virginia, often ascending great heights. It is reported
in the Catskills at an altitude of three thousand feet. There are but
three species of this genus found natively in the North Temperate Zone,
one being reported for the Rocky Mountain region, the other farther to
the northwest coast of America. The common Virgin’s-Bower (_Clematis
Virginiana_) grows also in rocky places, covering roadside walls and
bordering swamps and river banks in July and August.
Later in the autumn, this species is very attractive. The seed-pods burst
and produce a light, feathery down—little wings to aid the seeds in their
flight, like those of the dandelion and milkweed. The seed-capsules of
the Purple-Flowered Clematis also produce tails like the plumes of a
feather.
Several species of _Clematis_ were known to the ancients in Christ’s
day. The name originated with Dioscorides, and was used to designate
all climbing vines. He knew three kinds under the generic name of
_Aristolochia_, named in honor of Aristotle. The “branched vine” with
“deepe violet floures,” was called _Aristolochia clematites_. Peter
Bellon of ye olden time remarks that this plant grew in the mountains of
Ida in Crete, or Candie. Carolus Clusius reported it as growing among the
bushes and briars about the city of Hispalis, or Civill, in Spain, before
the sixteenth century.
I visited Oak Hill Cemetery on May 29th,—a very good place to observe
the early flowers of the woods about the valley. The country folk come
here with their laurels for Decoration Day, as Milton came to his
“Lycidas,” “to empurple all the ground with vernal flowers.”[42] Here
may be seen the pink azalea, the marsh marigolds—those golden-cups of
_Caltha_,—violets, and painted trilliums amid the bunches of pink and
golden moccasin-flowers, brought here in abundance by the school children.
On June 5th I sought the swamps of Etchowog. I followed down through the
Glen of Comus, in search of the great colony of Pink Moccasin-Flowers. I
found them in full bud,—two hundred in number, as formerly. As I entered
the hollow, I found in the middle of the path a Small Round-Leaved Orchis
(_Habenaria Hookeriana_).
This region is being slowly despoiled of its stately pines. I saw fresh
scars of the axe among them. Three first-growth trees were laid low,
piled on the side of the road.
I followed, as usual, the path through the Swamp of Oracles beside Ball
Brook, leading out through the clearings of Ball Farm. Here I waded
through Iris Swamp beyond, coming out to the pasture-land of Kimball
Farm.
This season, many changes have occurred in the Kimball Bogs, the
hillsides closing in about them having been almost sheared of their
trees. This results in flooding the heart of the swamp with sunshine, and
may in time dry up the growth of the beautiful moss known as _Sphagnum_,
and also destroy the Buckbeans. The cows were browsing among the small
tamaracks, and no signs of the Showy Queen of the Moccasin-Flowers
were visible hereabout this June. The Tall Green Orchis (_Habenaria
hyperborea_) grew luxuriantly in a pool over the fence near the clearing.
Purple Trilliums were also very abundant along my path. I passed out
through the vale, keeping the winding road until I reached the brow of
the orchard beyond, which was in full bloom.
The distant hills wore a delicate clear blue tone, and as I caught
glimpses of them between the round hills about me, I distinguished Mount
Æolus, that distant pile of Dorset marble far to the northeast of the
Gap. Leaving the orchard, I crossed the road and entered the deep grasses
of the old lake meadow, where the sphagnum is knee-deep. Here, as last
June, the Indian Poke and cowslip blossoms freshened the borders of the
stream. Along the edges of this wet region, I waded carefully until I
reached the famous Spring of Arethusa, around the glacial hill to the
left. I searched in the open meadow beyond the mill for Pitcher-Plant
blossoms,—and found many in full bloom. The grasses were ablaze with
tasselled sedges and nodding flowers of Iris,—a sight well worth a long
journey to see.
I rounded about the swamp, and passed out at the north end, near Washon
Bridge House. Here I ascended westward,—over the knob-like hill north of
Pownal Pond. On the opposite slope I descended, finding nothing but trees
and fences in my way. I observed a hollow-hearted chestnut tree,—a shell
and nothing more. I could scarcely see where its green branches could
gain nourishment. The leaves were, however, the largest in the wood, and
the buds were perfect. The heart of this old tree was an empty, blackened
space, the outer bark weather-worn and crumbling in decay.
Arriving on the north shore of the pond, I searched for the aquatic plant
_Polygonum amphibium_, which I had observed last season along the muddy
pools. The fencing of the sheep-pasture here debarred very free progress
about the shore. I was forced to climb the hill for some distance to find
an opening through the network of barbed wires. The day was warm, and the
sheep had taken shelter in the shade of the pines on the hillside.
The small pine grove along the west shore of Pownal Pond is often used
as a picnic ground. Years ago the south shore of this lake was clothed
with dense oak, pine, and maple trees. These vales were the homes of many
sturdy settlers while the fields were being cleared. The stone walls
which they erected outlast the memory of their builders, and are the
only monuments that time cannot remove. The few remaining gable-roofed
houses with their gaping doors and windows, along the East Road, during
the next few years will become obliterated entirely. The overgrown hedges
of cherry-trees and grape-vines are still struggling for existence by
the road; while the cinnamon-rose and southernwood are choked amid the
cat-mint and burdock along the border of the dooryard path.
These vales of Etchowog are deserted, and the thrift of the Revolutionary
days has departed. Nature is returning to her pristine state, and seeks
to subdue these traces of man by covering all with weeds, slow decay, and
mould.
Once in the pine grove, I discovered that I was in the vicinity of a
small cabin, which stood on the brow of the hill overlooking the pond.
A door opened southward from the house, and pasted upon it in bold
handwriting was the declaration that it was inhabited.
“Rented by Edward Green, Esquire.
Do not trespass on these premises.”
The water along the muddy edges of the pond displayed innumerable
wriggling pollywogs and small fishes. About midway along the shore, I
found the _Polygonum_ in blossom. I recognized the pink clusters nodding
on the water at some distance from the bank. The wind, blowing in little
whirling gusts, ruffled the waves. The distant Yellow Lily pads (_Nymphæa
advena_) flapped strangely for an instant or two,—turning their great
round leaves over on the water’s surface, and displaying their crimson
linings.
[Illustration: =The Beautiful Arethusa.= (_Arethusa bulbosa._)
This is a rare, shy orchid found in company with the Rose Pogonia and the
Grass-Pink in the heart of sphagnous swamps.]
I now devoted myself to solving the great problem of snaring the
Lady’s-Thumbs of this deep-water species of _Polygonum_. They were just
beyond my reach, and I was obliged to drag up an old weather-worn,
decaying pine, and float it out to walk upon. With a staff in one hand
and a willowy snare in the other, I ventured out upon the bridge as far
as I dared to go. I managed after many a slip to snare off the blossoms
and float them in to shore. On June 26th I was able to secure some of the
flowers of Polygonum growing in the centre of Thompson’s Pond, and found
the two plants identical.
There are seventy-one species of this genus in North America, and about
two hundred reported for the world. The above species, found in our lakes
and ponds, is not rare, yet it is seldom observed in clear water. It was
for me a new discovery for this region.
I was pretty well soaked after wading around these muddy shores,
and not a little tired with the planning and building of bridges. I
rested, therefore, on the hillside among the ferns, watching the daring
devil’s-darning-needles—dragon-flies—come and go about my head. The name
of darning-needle is still full of alarm to me, but the dragon-fly is
harmless both in name and nature. Bees were busy humming at their duty,
frogs were croaking the hours away, and the wind was still flapping the
ancient pads of Nymphæa, while low, sweet tones through the forest crept.
I could have fallen fast asleep here beneath these shades, yet I was far
from home, and my boots were heavy and wet.
I made slow progress homeward to-day, with my heavy foot-gear and
vasculum. I followed the dusty road to the Ball Farm gate. Here I turned
into the old grassy way which had been in use before the present road
was built near Thompson’s Brook. One can scarcely trace a track of the
traffic of the past years in the present sod. The stone walls on either
side of the lane are hidden with woodbine and red-raspberry bushes.
Beside this path towers a great pine tree. I had promised myself a long
rest beneath this shade, and gladly threw down my pack, and made a pillow
of my tin can.
The fleecy clouds rolled across the infinite blue over my head, and
a sense of relaxation and solitude stole over me. I must have fallen
asleep, and I was suddenly aroused by the cawing of crows that were
circling above me,—wondering perhaps whether Major and I were in a proper
condition for their approach.
I was more tired after my rest than before, and I began to question, as
many of my neighbors had done, the wisdom and profit of my bog-trotting.
Well, my neighbors see no value in pitcher-plants and sundew. They say
there is no money in them, and pity me for investing my time as I do.
Neither do I understand why the farmer chooses to cultivate squash rather
than follow some other occupation. It is his business to cultivate squash
as it is my business to cultivate sundew. Some crops are failures in
their monetary returns,—others in their yield of pleasure. As many wish
money only to procure pleasure, if pleasure can be procured without it,
why not take the easy way? The end is the same without the worry of the
squash-bugs, and the weeding and hilling of the crop,—to say nothing of
selling the fruit. The sundew plant would die were it to exchange its
habitat for that of the squash.
Giving myself a shake, I arose and again started on my way. Once through
the fence, I nailed fast the board I had loosened, and climbed up to the
road through the blackberry briars.
I did not make another journey for a week or more. On June 10th, I
ventured through the Glen of Comus to see the colony of the two hundred
Moccasins. An albino—a pure white flower of _Cypripedium acaule_—was
found recently by a lad in the district. He reports that he collected it
amid a group of thirteen Pink Moccasin-Flowers, apparently the only pale
one of the sisters.
Upon close examination of the structural parts of the albino, I observed
that the left anther had not developed at all. It appeared blasted in
embryo, and now looked like a brown smeared spot. The sepals and lateral
petals were of a rich chrome yellow. The dainty labellum was pure white,
of a pearl-like texture in the veining, and tinged with chrome on the
crest of the moccasin. It was indeed a strange, beautiful flower.
I had always supposed that an albino of any species of orchid was pure
white throughout its parts, and was therefore surprised to find the
sepals and side petals yellow.
Albinos of this species have been collected in this district for four
seasons. A colony, found near the schoolhouse, produced six white
blossoms. The children, calling them faded Pink Moccasins, believed them
to have lost their color after maturing. It appears from its persistence
that the variety is permanent, and not the freak of a season. The
abnormal anther may be present in all albinos. If so, it is evident
that evolution is taking place in the Pink Moccasin-Flower through the
suppression of one anther in genus _Cypripedium_, which possesses two,
while all other genera of the family have but one anther.
The colony of the Showy Lady’s Slipper in Rattlesnake Swamp, producing
forty-two blossoms in 1899, unfolded but fifteen flowers this season. For
reasons unknown to me, it was not a good year for Cypripediums.
XII
Saucy Jays and Polypores
To arched walks of twilight groves,
And shadows brown, that Sylvan loves,
Of pine, or monumental oak,
Where the rude axe, with heaved stroke,
Was never heard the nymphs to daunt,
Or fright them from their hallowed haunt.
MILTON, _Il Penseroso_.
I followed down one of those sun-dried brook beds that melting snows from
the hillsides had eroded during past ages. It proved a short journey
to the Glen of Comus, descending northward toward Ball Brook in the
vale below. I had not proceeded far when I discovered what at first
sight seemed a robin’s nest, built high in the branches of the American
Hornbeam,—or, as it is locally known, the Iron-Wood tree (_Carpinus
Caroliniana_). It is the only American species of this genus in the
Birch Family. Several saplings stood about fifteen feet high, two having
so interlaced their branches as to form a strong crotch about eight
feet from the ground. The nest was fashioned roughly, built of small
sticks, and fastened in the crotch-like loft of these trees. Looking more
closely, I perceived the nest was a third larger than the robin’s, and
was not plastered with mud. I soon discovered that the bird upon the
nest had blue tail feathers and a jaunty cadet top-knot, as she peeped
over the edge of the nest at me. This was, then, the saucy jay’s nest, so
seldom found about these woods. She became disturbed, and flew off down
the ravine. I managed to climb up the trees high enough to determine that
the eggs were still unhatched.
The glen was dark here, and Major and I sat in the dim light beneath
the shadows of this dense underwood. The jays began in chorus to scream
unmercifully. They were distressed by Major’s presence, and flew saucily
above his head. He scarcely knew what to make of it all,—not being a
bird-dog,—and sat demurely looking at me and wagging his tail. Finally,
tired of their own screaming, the jays proceeded down through the
intricate windings of the hollow, and we heard their mutterings at a
distance,—a pleasant wild sound through these forests.
I looked carefully over the iron-wood trees. They are not uncommon
hereabout. Their trunks are ridged and muscular in appearance. These
trees are in fact very strong, possessing the endurance of the oak and
beech. They never attain great height,—from fifteen to forty feet or
so,—but the weight of their wood to the cubic foot is forty to fifty
pounds.
Many decaying logs of yellow birch and pine stumps were scattered along
the brook bed. They were covered with beautiful mosses and fungi. The
shelf-like growth, known as _Polypores_, was abundant on these trees.
There are several varieties of this group of fungi here. The larger kind
often attains a diameter from six inches to three or four feet, in a
semicircle, according to age. It is a hard, leathery or cork-like growth
full of pores, the top of the shelf seeming like a slanting roof, grained
and striated as it were, with colored slates of gray and brown. This
fungus seeks no special species of decayed tree, as I find it clinging to
several,—the yellow and white birch, and hemlock logs and stumps.
[Illustration: =The Rattlesnake Plantain.= (_Peramium._) =A group
of three species collected on Rattlesnake Ledge, Mount Œta, Pownal,
Vermont.=]
The underside of Polypores is of a soft ashes-of-roses hue when fresh,
later becoming a dull gray-brown. If one looks sharply at the under
surface, even with the naked eye, he will observe little pores no larger
than pin-points. Under the magnifying-glass, these appear like giant
honeycomb cells. Cutting through a section of the shelf, we find that
these pores penetrate the heart of the shelf. In these little pore-like
cells, the spores or seeds are borne, more hidden even than those of the
Fern Family.
The name _Polypores_ originated from these minute pores. Puff-balls or
toadstools spring up during a night in pastures or corners in rich wood.
But the Polypores are slow in growth.
A beautiful species of the Polypores is worshipped by the natives in
Guinea. I also have found and worshipped several specimens of great
beauty. I discovered a very large shelf on a decaying hemlock stump in
Rattlesnake Swamp, which I severed carefully with a woodsaw, removing
enough of the stump to show its attachment to the tree.
As I passed through the glen to-day, I found many large and small
specimens of this fungus, whose growth demands a humid atmosphere. The
fact that decay does not take place rapidly save in a damp, warm wood,
naturally proves that Polypores require such shades as these in which to
develop.
Tall brakes rose luxuriantly four feet high or more. The atmosphere
was heavy, and the sphagnum was steaming wherever the sunshine poured
through the leaves upon it. A certain fragrance of the earth rose up
from the swamp and met me everywhere,—a mingled perfume as of violets
and Cypripediums. I explored about the pools to the left, finding many
flowers in bloom.
Upon a miniature island in the centre of the pool grew the tall spikes of
the Queen Moccasin-Flower, in bud. Turning to the south, under the hill
among the rocks, is the fountain of the glen, which freshens the heart of
the flowers beyond. Surely these are the haunts of thrushes, as well as
the home of the queen of the orchids. The Golden Moccasin-Flowers peeped
out from beneath the shades of ferns, and sprinkled the mellow glooms
with jewels, like footsteps of sunshine left by the wood-nymphs of old.
The footprints of the woodman and the clips from his axe are yet unknown
in this Glen of Comus. This is the sanctuary of the gods of old, and
these the altars beneath the roofless temples, where man may worship
still the deities of Nature. The wood-thrush’s song rings through these
cathedral aisles:
“Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.”[43]
I crept quietly through all these winding halls, which I had never before
explored. Near the northern portal of the glen stood a white birch,
branchless, and mellow in decay, yet beautifully robed with delicate
Butterfly Polypores of a velvety-purplish hue. Turning at the junction of
the streams, I frightened up the oven-bird, the golden-crowned thrush.
She moaned and fluttered away, as though in distress, dropping her wings
and hiding among the ferns. I searched about for her nest, and soon found
it low upon the ground. Her cottage door was open to the south, revealing
five pinkish eggs mottled with purple. The nest was hooded,—thatched,
as it were, like an Indian’s wigwam, with leaves, twigs, ferns, and
mosses,—so like the ground itself that I nearly walked upon it.
We have five true thrushes of genus _Turdus_ in the Atlantic Region—the
Veery, Wood-Thrush, and Hermit-Thrush are found in this immediate
region. They are our peerless woodland songsters, coming about May 1st,
and often lingering until September 15th. The Veery winters in Central
America, and flies as far north as Newfoundland to nest in summer. Like
the Hermit-Thrush, it builds its nest on the ground. The Veery has a
mysterious strain likened often to an Æolian harp; the Wood-Thrush rings
like the chimes of vesper bells, and the Hermit-Thrush has the deepest
note of all, rolling like “anthems clear” through the dim woods.
Burroughs translates its song thus: “O spheral, spheral! O holy, holy!”
My delight was complete, since I had found two rare birds’ nests within
an hour,—those of the melancholy songster and the screaming jay. Four
days later I visited both of these nests to see the birdlings. The mother
jay was not at home, so I did not distress her when I climbed up to
peep at the homely babies. I passed on down to the deeper glen to the
oven-bird’s wigwam. She too was absent. Five little bald heads and five
wide-gaping mouths were revealed as I drew near the nest, bespeaking
the necessity of a thrifty mother to search for food to satisfy their
needs. I touched their little heads, then drew back and waited almost an
hour for the return of the mother bird, hoping to see the feeding of the
young. But she was either shy or belated, and did not appear.
THIRD SEASON
XIII
The Swamps and Hills of Mosholu and Lowerre, New York
Within the circuit of this plodding life,
There enter moments of an azure hue.
THOREAU, _Excursions_.
This season, on May 15th, I began my explorations in the hills and
swamps of Mosholu and Lowerre. The most conspicuous flowers about these
woods are trillium, spring beauties (_Claytonia Virginica_), bird’s-foot
violets, yellow violets, jack-in-the-pulpits, and pink azaleas. The
swamps and slopes east of the Mosholu station are bright with these
blossoms, which peep from the sod and shrub in their turn. In several
places, also columbine, Dutchman’s-breeches and dog’s-tooth lily are
abundant. During May these flowers, with the trees of snowy dogwood
blossoms, fill the rolling hills and quiet valleys with delicate perfume
and unrivaled glory.
Along the higher ridges, the brilliant Rock Pinks (_Phlox subulata_)
bloom abundantly. Their mossy-mats creep over the hills from Bronx Park
to Yonkers. They belong especially to the extreme southern part of the
State of New York, and southward to Virginia and westward to Michigan.
In these woods of Mosholu and Lowerre they flower immediately after the
Dutchman’s-breeches have faded. I had believed that these pinks must grow
as far north as West Rock and the rocky heights of the Giant at Mount
Carmel, as well as about the ridges bordering Lake Saltonstall, near
New Haven, Connecticut. I was, however, disappointed to find that their
territory extended no farther north than the wilder woods of New York
City.
I discovered many beautiful plants of the Prickly Pear, or Indian Fig
(_Opuntia Opuntia_) of the Cactus Family. It was named for a town in
Greece where it grew. This strange relic of the primeval wood blooms in
June, producing a sulphurous-yellow flower of great beauty. The large,
spatulate-lobed, juicy leaves are sap-green in color, bearing many
thorn-like spines. The new leaves, or lobes, appear as joints along the
edges of the parent leaf. The fruit is edible. This species is often
cultivated. It belongs natively to the rocky shores of Nantucket, Rhode
Island, and to Manhattan Island. It is not abundant in Bronx Wood,
however. Isolated colonies of the plant live in New York City, along the
mutton-backed granite rocks in vacant lots, west of St. Nicholas Avenue,
and along Washington Heights.
Wild Garlic, of the Lily Family, is ever present about the hills of Bronx
Valley and Spuyten Duyvil Creek.
[Illustration: =The Snowy Dogwood Blossoms, from the Hills of Mosholu,
New York.=
“_Like a drift of tardy snow,_
_Tangled where the trees are low,_
_Scented dogwood blossoms blow._
_Dainty petals spreading wide,_
_Heart-shaped, lying side by side,_
_Not a leaf the flowers to hide._”
MARY WILSON.]
The Bird’s-Foot Violet (_Viola pedata_) and the Round-Leaved Violet
(_Viola rotundifolia_) seem to run riot on the Mosholu Hills, but it is
not always easy to distinguish the species. A variety of Bird’s-Foot
Violet that grows here appears like a small pansy, and is designated as
_Viola bicolor_, producing two delicate, velvety hues of blue-purple. The
plant derived its common name from the shape of the leaves, which are
divided into five to eleven pointed lobes.
The early Greek name for Violets and Pansies was _Ion_. According to
Emperor Constantine, it arose from _Io_, a nymph loved of Jupiter,
Nicander wrote that the name _Ion_ was given to Violets because the
Nymphs first presented Jupiter with these flowers in the fields of
Ionia. They were known to Virgil as _Vaccinium_, and later in Latin as
_Vittulæ_, _Violæ_, and to-day they are classified as _Viola_. Species
of these plants were designated by the early Greek apothecaries as
“_Herbes Bolbonac_.” In the sixteenth century plants of this family grew
wild among the corn-field stubbles of England, according to Dodoens and
Lyte. They were known as _Viola_, _Iacea_, _Herbe Clauellata_, _Pances_,
Love-in-Idleness, and Heart’s-Ease.
The Downy Yellow Violet (_Viola pubescens_), although not so common as
blue violets in Bronx Woods, is abundant in special corners among the
damp hillsides. Here, too, the Sweet White Violet (_Viola blanda_) dwells
near the borders of streams. It is delicately fragrant, although not so
sweet-scented as the Canada Violet (_Viola Canadensis_) growing northward
as well as southward along mountainside streams. The perfume of the
Canada Violet is much like that of the Small Yellow Moccasin-Flower.
Jack-in-the-Pulpit preaches from many rocky hills and hollows in Mosholu
and Lowerre, where grow the largest plants I ever saw. They spring from
bulbous turnip or onion-like roots, and are sometimes called Indian
Turnips. These plants were known by Pliny in Christ’s day as “Dragons,”
on account of the stalks, which are speckled like an adder’s skin.
The ancients believed that the leaves of Dragonworts, carried in the
clothing, would prevent stings of vipers. Others believed that the
leaves, wrapped around cheese, would keep it from mouldering.
Matthiolus thus described the Skunk-Cabbage of this group, to which was
attributed mythical properties, since it grew sparingly in northern
Asia: “Great large leaves, folded and lapped one within another, with an
upright stalke, at the top a floure like to a spikie-eare.”
The Green Dragonwort and Jack-in-the-Pulpit were known, until recently,
generically as _Arum_. _Arisæma_ antedates _Arum_, referring to the
red-blotched stalks of some species. Jack-in-the-Pulpit to-day is
known in the science as _Arisæma triphyllum_. The origin of the name
Jack-in-the-Pulpit is recent, and, like Indian Turnip, is purely of
American origin. Clara Smith of Medford, Massachusetts, so christened
these Dragonworts, in a poem which was sent to Whittier for revision.
He published it in _Child Life_, about 1884, after amending and adding
several lines. The poem became popular, and the flower was thereafter
known as “Jack-in-the-Pulpit.”
Columbine was especially plentiful along the hillsides; and the hollows
and crevices of rocks were filled with blade-like leaves, resembling
Sweet Flag (_Acorus Calamus_). They proved, however, to be the leaves
of the Blackberry Lily (_Gemmingia Chinensis_). This lily creeps from
southern New York to Georgia. The seeds resemble blackberries. The plant
produces several large blossoms in a terminal bracted cluster, of an
orange color mottled with purple. This species was formerly known as
_Pardanthus_, meaning a Leopard-Flower. The roots are of a golden color.
Returning from the Point of Rocks above Deer Park, I passed along lanes
bordered with cedars and junipers, while violets, rosy-pinks and tufts of
maiden-hair spleenwort clung to the ledges. On leaving the swamp below, I
found a drowsy diamond snake in a stupor, from having recently swallowed
a bird or frog. The diamond-shaped checks upon his skin betrayed his
species. He is considered venomous, therefore I remained a safe distance
from him.
On May 18th I again visited the Point of Rocks and McLean’s Woods,
searching for _Orchis spectabilis_ and for _Cypripedium parviflorum_.
Leaving the car at Bedford Park, we struck westward, coming out near Poe
Park, where still stands that quaint white cottage in which Poe wrote
_The Raven_. We bore around the slopes, northward beyond the Racing
Park, and entered a country lane, soon turning again to the left into
the forest, where stood great pools of water. Along the sluggish stream
grew many rare species of fern. Finally we entered Jerome Avenue, leading
toward Yonkers.
We searched the borders of the roadside for that little two-leaved
orchid, Twayblade (_Leptorchis liliifolia_), formerly known as
Lily-leaved Liparis, which grows here in the moist woods. We were too
early for it, however. We turned off into the deeper woods till we came
to the tangled edges of McLean’s Swamp. Here, a little later, I collected
pink azaleas and marsh marigolds, golden-ragwort,—known as the False
Valerian (_Senecio aureus_),—white mustard, and water-cress,—also of the
Mustard Family. Throughout these beautiful woods the Broad-Beech Fern
(_Phegopteris hexagonoptera_) and the Oak Fern (_Phegopteris Dryopteris_)
dwell. The Jack-in-the-Pulpit and Indian Cucumbers were here, towering
above the False Lilies-of-the-Valley and Trillium; and among these
vines the dainty golden-shoes of the Fragrant Cypripedium tripped forth
like fairy’s foot-gear. The Indian Cucumber (_Medeola Virginiana_) is
a strange plant belonging to the Lily-of-the-Valley Family. The root
is tuberous, of a white, brittle substance, with a flavor like that of
the garden cucumber. The leaves occur in two whorls along the slender
stalk. About the middle of the stem there is a whorl of five to nine
oblong-lanceolate leaves; above this another smaller whorl occurs, with
three to five leaves; and still above this, all the small flowers nod
toward the ground.
_Medeola_ is an adaptation of Medea, the name of the daughter of King
Æetes of Colchis, who aided Jason by her witchcraft, and was afterward
deserted by him. This plant is supposed to possess magic properties as a
medicine, and is thus used by the Indians and other superstitious folk.
Colonies of Brake and Clayton’s Fern grew in the hollows on the hill, and
about the stagnant pools northward. We wandered up and down the slopes
with eyes bent upon the ground, carefully pacing between the vines,
searching for the Golden Moccasin-Flowers. Most of the buds still were
folded within the sepals, although we found a few that were showing their
golden tips and carmine lacing-petals. In the swamps beyond, we gathered
a dozen Nodding Wake-Robins (_Trillium cernuum_). This species is not so
gaudy as the Painted Trillium, being of a delicate rose-pink, and often
pure white.
Later in the week, while exploring to the east beyond the lane toward
Mount Vernon, I ran upon a select group of _Cypripedium parviflorum_,
many stems of which bore two blossoms. This colony grew beneath pines,
cedars, thorns, and dogwood trees. The soil was rich and dry, and the
leaves, for the most part, were blown off the bare black soil. I counted
a hundred plants—evidently seedlings—besides the ones in bloom. Some were
at least three or four years old; others were of only one or two seasons’
growth. The smallest plants were but a few months old. I had never found
so many natural seedlings of Cypripedium before.
We journeyed homeward through Putnam Valley to Mosholu, passing Van
Courtlandt Mansion. Near Cold Spring, along the borders of the Golf
Links, we found the handsome leaves of Bloodroot (_Sanguinaria
Canadensis_), of the Poppy Family, which is one of the early flowers, and
is pure white. The roots contain a reddish orange juice which looks like
blood, whence the name is derived.
At the crossing of the Putnam Railroad, we passed over the bridge near
Deer Park, east of Mosholu. Leaving the road abruptly, we turned to the
right, following along the west shore of the Putnam Swamp, which is
filled with the rank growth of skunk’s-cabbage, Indian poke, tangled
grape-vines, mints, mustards, golden ragwort, violets, dog’s-tooth
lilies, and unknown measures of wild ginger root, stick-tights, or
“pitchforks,” and cockle-burrs.
The Yellow Cypripedium also, at one time, grew along the edges of the
swamp, amid the Indian poke, violets, and lilies. Slowly we climbed
the hill toward the northwest, along winding paths among white birch
saplings, pines, and junipers, until we reached the Point of Rock
near Lowerre, this pile of granite being the highest along the Putnam
Division, in this vale. On the east of the rocks, we found a dozen or
more plants of the Showy Orchis, scattered among the stones and vines.
Their flowers, however, were faded, and fell as soon as touched. Among
the low bushes and plants I found a colony of the leafless parasitic
Cancer-Root (_Thalesia uniflora_), of the Broom-Rape Family.
[Illustration: =1. Indian Pipes.= (_Monotropa uniflora._) =2. Pine-Sap.=
(_Hypopitys Hypopitys_).
“_Humbly it wears its robe of snow,_
_When summer gives its bud release,_
_And Indians called it long ago_
_The Calumet or Pipe of Peace._”
W. M. L.]
Another plant lacking green leaves is the Indian Pipe or Corpse-Plant
(_Monotropa uniflora_), frequently met among the Orange Mountains of
New Jersey, and throughout the Hoosac Highlands. It grows among decayed
brush-heaps in dark woods, during June and August. There are twelve
species of _Monotropaceæ_. The flowers of a sister genus of _Monotropa_,
found in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, are remarkable for their deep
rose-carmine coloring. It is sometimes known as the Snow-Plant (_Sarcodes
sanguinea_). The tall club-like, fleshy spikes are encircled with crimson
pipe-shaped flowers, often sixty or even a hundred being found on one
spike. A specimen plant, collected in Washoe Valley near Franktown,
Nevada, was sent to me last season, on May 15th. The flowers grow there
along the higher slopes of the mountains, at an elevation from six to
nine thousand feet above sea level, amid brakes, pine, fir, cedar,
golden-chestnut bushes, and the beautiful evergreen shrub, Manzanita
(_Arctostaphylos pungens_).
Above the Point of Rocks, a rough canvas tent was pitched in a crevice
of the ledge—probably the temporary abode of Italian green venders.
Columbines, rock-pinks, violets, and Wood Betony (_Pedicularis
Canadensis_) crept along our path. The plants of the Wood Betony produce
yellowish-green as well as crimson-purple flowers. They are often called
Lousewort. Children often mis-name them orchids, believing this term
suitable to all odd-looking flowers.
The white Monumental Rock, east of Mosholu Swamp, is covered with glacial
scratches. From its summit a dream of visual delight spreads toward the
blue walls of the Palisades along the Hudson. The blossoming wood,
waving with pink and white dogwood branches, the western slope of the
rock itself, banked with rosy pinks, nodding lily-bells, and columbine,
form a scene the impression of which never can fade from the mind.
Passing the station of Mosholu, we followed the path along the railroad
southwardly near the marsh. Here, during July, three rare species of
Habenaria will bloom. And in the meadows farther northward, the Ladies’
Tresses—genus _Gyrostachys_ of the Orchid Family—and the Blue Fringed
Gentians (_Gentiana crinita_) will unfold in September and October. Soon
we came to the end of the swampy path, and entered the broad meadows of
Van Courtlandt Farm. In the distance the antique Colonial Mansion of
Revolutionary fame stood out among the ancient trees. Over these fields
the first bobolinks of the season were carolling. I found one of their
eggs among the grasses. It is a risky nesting-ground for birds. The
parades of the militia form upon these fields, the regiments’ camp being
located east of the mansion. The trees along the lanes hereabout are
English species, planted years ago by the owner of the mansion. Many are
crumbling and decaying as the mills to the left. Another half century
will do away with such as these. To the right flows Spuyten Duyvil
Creek,—a small, elusive stream; and as it glides into the swamp beyond,
it covers much marsh-land, where sedges and cat-tails flourish and no one
dares to wade.
[Illustration: =The Snow-Plant of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.=
(_Sarcodes sanguinea._)]
XIV
The Swamp of Oracles—Hoosac Valley
Science is welcome to the deepest recesses of the forest, for
there, too nature obeys the same old civil laws. The little red
bug on the stump of a pine,—for it the wind shifts and the sun
breaks through the clouds.—THOREAU, _Week on the Concord and
Merrimack Rivers_.
On June 6th I departed from New York for the Hoosac Valley, to obtain
photographs of my orchids and their haunts. Rosy-faces, golden-slippers,
witches’-bells, and milky-white stars all arose from the earth at once in
gay array, and disputed their line of order in posing for their pictures.
I had sent no forewarning of my coming to the swamps. I fancied I should
find more flowers in bloom if I took them by surprise.
The morning of the seventh, I hurried off at sunrise through the dewy
meadows. I felt sure I was too late for the Showy Orchis and the
Ram’s-Head Cypripedium, the former having faded in Bronx Valley as early
as May 18th. The hills were glorious; the robins, orioles, and bobolinks
were carolling joyously. The meadows, still heavy with dew, caused me
to choose my path along the edges of the Bone Lot near the old Pond
Hole. This I found fringed with pink azaleas,—the swamp-apple blossoms
loved of the children hereabout. I entered the chestnut wood beyond, and
sought the colony of the Large Yellow Moccasin-Flowers, only to find that
the shoes had been broken from their stems, and that there were none
remaining. Still, there were other groups in the Swamp of Oracles, and I
proceeded to scout the slopes leading to the hollow below, winding about
the knolls—or Sugar-loaves, as they are called here. These glacial hills
are worthless barren pastures at best, seldom ploughed for rye or corn,
for all attempted crops of grain here have proven thin and dwarfed, and
when it rains gutters burrow in the hillsides.
As I descended through Patterson’s Meadows, the air was musical with
humming bees and birds. Moths and butterflies sailed lazily about the
pools below, hovering about the first blossoms of Fleur-de-lis. Over the
rolling fields near, the tender leaves of Indian-corn rustled musically
in the breeze, and crows were still lingering on the fence, not in the
least frightened by the snares and scarecrows about the field. I found
the meadow ablaze with late Columbine (_Aquilegia Canadensis_); I had
never before seen fields so luxuriant with the blossoms of this plant.
They danced among the daisies, and outnumbered the grasses in their
patches. The generic name _Aquilegia_, or _Aquileia_, is said in our
manuals to be derived from _Aquila_, an eagle, since the curves of the
hollow spurs of these flowers resemble an eagle’s talons. But in this
case, the name should read _Pes Aquilegia_. Among the ancient herbals,
however, there is no record of this derivation. Originally, as Dodoens
wrote in 1578, this plant was known as _Aquileia_. Aquileia was also the
name of a town in the vicinity of ancient Troy. The town was celebrated
in history for its desperate resistance to Attila, King of the Huns.
Assuming that the origin of the name is vague, and observing the customs
of the ancients in the naming of plants, it might be inferred that these
flowers were first observed in the town of Aquileia, or were named in
honor of a king or herbalist of the region. This was the case with the
_Pæonia_, which took its title from that good old man, Dr. Pæon of
Pæonia, in Macedonia. The origin of the common name _Columbine_, also,
has occasioned of late much discussion in the popular plant journals.[44]
One author, claiming that the spurs of these flowers resembled a
dove’s-foot, said that the name should read “_Pes Columbinus_”—_pes_
meaning foot, and _columbinus_ signifying dove. But “_Pes Columbinum_”
was used by the ancients to designate an allied group of _Aquilegia_,
a species of wild geranium, written of by Linnæus in 1753 as _Geranium
Columbinum_. It is commonly known in English as Dove’s-foot Geranium, and
in French as _Pied de pigeon_.
According to Gaza, species of _Aquilegia_ were supposed to have been
named originally by Theophrastus—centuries before Christ—_Ponthos
Theophrasti_. Theophrastus is accepted as our first real botanist leaving
extant records of plants. The name _Columbine_ for these species appears
to have originated in England, or in the Low Countries. Dodoens described
them under that title as early as 1578; and as botany was not actually
revived until 1530 and 1542, we may accept Dodoens as authoritative on
the common names of that day. He writes of the Columbine: “The shape and
proportion of the leaves of the floures do seem to represent the figure
of a dove or culver,—these floures produce hollows with a long-crooked
tayle like a Lark’s-claw (and bending somewhat toward the proportion of
the necke of a Culver).”[45] The honeyed-spurs of Columbine, therefore,
suggested the curve of a dove’s-neck rather than the dove’s-foot or the
eagle’s-talons. Another author is reminded of a “dove’s-cote,” as he
looks into the open flower, which seems to him a fitting home for doves.
Columbine-flowers are often called “Honeysuckles” by children. The name
Honeysuckle, however, applies to the Woodbines which Dodoens describes as
growing with flowers “in tufts like nosegaies, of a pleasant color, and
long and hollow almost like the little bags of Columbine.” The Columbine
became confused with the Honeysuckles of the Woodbine Family, since
Columbines produce “little bags of honey”—which the children sucked and
christened. Furthermore there is a resemblance in the long hollow spurs
of the Woodbine flowers to those of Columbine blossoms.
The Columbines belong to the Crowfoot Family (_Ranunculaceæ_), and are
closely allied with sister genera, including Clematis, Anemone, Hepatica,
Meadow Rue, False Bugbane, Buttercup, Marsh Marigold, Goldthread,
Larkspur, Aconite, and Monkshood. These species produce plants with cut
leaves, as it were, resembling feet, claws, or talons of various birds,
animals, and fishes.
Continuing my journey, I crossed the edges of Rabbit Plain, observing
the low blue huckleberry bushes, laden with green fruit, and the flaming
flowers of the deep pink azaleas. Through the bushes peered the white
schoolhouse of District Fourteen. I wandered along the border of the wood
just out of sight of the curious gaze of the children. A cow-path led
windingly along the shades for a quarter of a mile. Near the bars above
the Swamp of Oracles, I found a spike of the Small Round-Leaved Orchis
(_Habenaria Hookeriana_) in bud. I blazed a tree above it, marking the
spot for another day when the flowers should be in blossom. Crossing
the East Pownal road, I turned into a hollow to the west, following
along over decaying logs and pine brush-heaps. The ground sent up a
rich pitch-like perfume as the sun poured down upon the mossy sod. Wild
lilies were abundant here, producing the largest leaves I ever saw.
Solomon’s Seal, arbutus, and wintergreen leaves (_Gaultheria_) were
creeping everywhere near the edges of the deeper wood. Within the denser
shades, growing among pine logs and heaps of leaves, I found the Great
Round-Leaved Orchis, so seldom found in the lower vales. It proved to be
a seedling, too young to bloom. The leaves were like large saucers, and
of a beautiful silvery green underneath. The plant is always suggestive
of the luxuriant tropics. I marked the corner, and shielded it from any
chance vandal eye with a broken branch of black birch.
The slopes leading to Cold Spring, in the hollow below, were abrupt, and
I was forced to slide most of the distance, clinging to the bushes. I
came out at the foot of the hill in the midst of a colony of Sweet Canada
Violets (_Viola Canadensis_) in full bloom. They grew along the borders
of a little brook flowing through a dense thicket of soft maple and black
birches. I had never before found this species in flower here. It seemed
to have flown down from the heights of the Dome, to grace this swamp.
Belated purple birthroot and its sister, the painted trillium, were still
nodding here. There were also a few pale-faced priests-in-the-pulpit,
unlike the larger coarse purple ones found in Bronx Valley. These Indian
Turnips are not abundant here as in the swamps and hills of Mosholu. The
wild leek of genus _Allium_ seeks the higher mountainsides.
I followed the Canadensis Brook to the edge of the Swamp of Oracles,
crossing Ball Brook at the junction of these streams. I penetrated where
the rarer orchids dwell, and where few children dare to travel. I was
still too early for the Showy Queen Moccasin-Flower, but on time for the
large and the small golden slippers, as well as the Pink Acaule—that
humble two-leaved Cypripedium which, as a rule, only seeks the dryer
edges of the swamps. The Large Yellow Moccasin-Flowers were beginning to
fade and turn brown. The swamp was luxuriant in its growth of ferns and
vines and foliage. Dogwood trees are very scarce here, but the azaleas,
mountain laurel, or calico-bush, and the lambkill flowers make up for the
missing snowy blossoms.
In the heart of the swamp I was attracted by an uprooted tree, about
whose stump stagnant water had settled, now reflecting the shadows and
sunshine as a miniature lake. Several baby deer-mice were in the pool.
Many were dead, and the live ones were swimming about in desperation. I
counted six or seven in all. I fished them out, and placed them on the
sun-dried moss, which covered the roots of the turnover, forming little
islands in the lake. But these white-faced, pink-eyed little creatures
were no safer after my rescue than before; for soon, in their nervous
fright, they crawled off the mossy islands, and were still swimming
when—not wishing to witness the end—I went away. It was one of the
many mid-forest tragedies which Nature seems to plan with so little
philosophy, and which I knew I could not prevent. Had I removed them from
the water again and placed them at a distance from the mud-hole over
which they were born, certain starvation would have awaited them. In the
topmost parts of the overturned stump, amid the roots and peat, a pile of
forest leaves was rudely huddled, forming the deer-mouse mansion, hidden
from the crawling turtles and creeping snakes, as well as from the hawks
and owls in the trees above. There are many natural causes of destruction
for such animals in the woods. Usually I have found the deer-mouse’s
nest in low thorn-apple bushes, at least six feet above the ground, but
always near the borders of streams. Such nests at first remind one of a
last year’s bird-nest filled with drifted autumn leaves, until the little
wildwood albinos are discovered.
With my vasculum packed full of perfect blossoms, I started homeward,
following the Pownal Centre road westward, in order to have a look at the
Ram’s-Head Cypripedium. On the edge of the marsh, as usual I found the
two hundred unfolding buds of the Pink Moccasins (_Cypripedium acaule_).
Near the Amidon Meadows, I startled up two mother partridges and their
broods—the Ruffled Grouse (_Bonasa umbellus_), so prolific in these
woods. The old hens, fluttering and sputtering, limped away with their
wings drooping, and continued to warn their chickens to hide. The little
speckled fellows were soon lost sight of beneath the dead leaves at my
feet. They ceased to peep, and being of the colors of the leaves, I
hardly dared to advance for fear of stepping upon them. I sat down upon a
stone by a tree, and waited for the return of the wild hens. Before long,
I heard a rustling of leaves in the distance, and a clucking and calling
as of a tame hen summoning her chickens to feed upon a worm. The little
brown balls began—one, three, then a dozen, all at once to take their
heads from under the leaves, and they ran like streaks of lightning.
The mother partridge came so near, unawares, that I saw the color of her
eyes. Finally, discovering me, she in terror signalled again, much as the
tame hen does in real or fancied danger. The little grouse hid again,
some of them putting their heads under leaves, while the body was wholly
exposed.
On June 8th I visited Rattlesnake Swamp. Pink Moccasin-Flowers and late
blossoms of Painted Trillium were abundant under the hemlocks along the
slopes of the Domelet.
On June 10th I heard of a colony of albinos or white _Cypripedium acaule_
reported on the Rabbit Plain north of the Swamp of Oracles. In searching
unsuccessfully for it, I frightened up an old mother whippoorwill. She
feigned broken wings, attempting to distract my attention from her two
unprotected yellow eggs upon the leaves at my feet. Both partridges
and whippoorwills remain on their nests until almost stepped upon, as
a rule, believing that they are concealed because of their dead-leaf
ground-coloring. The old whippoorwill perched on some distant pine logs,
and moaned piteously while I looked at her eggs. Her great round, sad
eyes distressed me, while she gave forth a sighing sound. I broke down
a small tree over the nest and near the path as I left, hung my linen
collar on a tree, marking the line of entrance for another day.
Four days later I returned, and found two little round balls of yellow
down, just out of their shells which were lying near. Creeping up
softly within touch of the mother, I had a chance of observing her
carefully. She had no shelter or protection but a leaf of the False
Lily-of-the-Valley (_Unifolium Canadense_) which covered her eyes and
part of her head. She never stirred a feather nor blinked either of her
round brown eyes. Close to the earth like the leaves themselves, pressed
down with winter snows, it was difficult to distinguish her feathers
from them. I finally frightened her from the spot. The poor little birds
heard their mother’s cry of alarm, and, babes as they were, instinctively
understood it all, opening their dreamy sad eyes, and trying to hide
away. Nest they had none, and rolled about over the leaves. I visited
these birdlings so often, in my eagerness to make observations, that
the mother finally left her young. One cold night, finding them almost
freezing and starving, I took them home. They did not live more than a
week, however, on account of my ignorance as to what food to give them.
During this time they became very tame and dependent upon my care,
rejoicing strangely when I came near.
The Southern Chuck-Will’s-Widow, a species closely allied to our
Whippoorwill, builds no nest, but is said to move her eggs and young, in
her large mouth, from place to place, wherever she may choose to abide.
It would be well if Nature had thus taught our Northern Whippoorwills.
I continued to visit the Bogs of Etchowog, collecting azalea, iris, and
the other flowers in their turn. In circling the Pownal Pond one day,
I ran upon a Water Thrush (_Selurus noveboracensis_) and her brood
of five little foolish, half-grown thrushlings. The awkward birds ran
peeping across my path, not in the least afraid. I caught them all, and
placed three in my hat, leaving two for consolation to the mother, while
I hurried home to obtain a photograph of my prizes. But I was not able
to reconcile them to their new conditions and food so easily as I had
domesticated my whippoorwills. As soon as I had secured a negative, I
returned them, nearly famished, to the mother, who was running along the
shore of the pond, tipping-up her tail like the wagtail. These birds are
swift in flight, skimming near the water, whistling as it were, while
they catch insects. Their nest is very difficult to find, being as a
rule among the roots of trees along the shores of ponds or streams in
damp woods. I frequently observe these birds walking in the stony brook
flowing down from Cold Spring in Chalk Pond region, as well as about the
shores of Aurora’s Lake in North Adams.
[Illustration: =Motherless Baby Whippoorwills.=]
The hillside clearings in this region are the haunts of woodchucks
(_Arctomys monax_). Many holes show where they have burrowed. Usually
these ground-pigs seek for their habitations clover and bean fields,
which furnish them provender. Exploring the dooryard of the woodchuck,
I found several plants of the Small Round-Leaved Orchis maturing their
seed-capsules. Not every wild pig’s garden bears this evidence of
æstheticism.
The fertilization of these strange Round-Leaved Habenarias is unique.
The anther is eager to give up its pollinia. The adhesive masses shot
from their cells when I touched them, and fastened to the head of my
hat-pin. When placed near the viscid surface of the stigma, they were
drawn forcefully from it, thus impregnating the ovules in the ovary.
These masses of pollinia, once glued upon the thigh of an insect, would
remain there until deposited on the attractive stigma of their proper
species.
On my next excursion to the Bogs of Etchowog, I found nothing new, save
six spikes of the Small Purple-Fringed Orchis in bud. I was too early for
Pogonias and Limodorums, which are fast disappearing from this swamp.
The colony of Fragrant Yellow Moccasin-Flowers, in the Glen of Comus,
was photographed one morning while the sunshine struggled in through the
leaves, lighting up the flowers in this labyrinth of tropical foliage.
They were fragrant in the highest degree—a true form of _Cypripedium
parviflorum_, with a slight variegated effect of carmine coloring on the
tips of the slippers. This is the first instance of such spots of crimson
on the exterior observed by me. Near this group stands also a larger
colony of _Cypripedium hirsutum_ seedling plants. Several had bloomed
this season. One slipper had been destroyed by what appeared to be a
snail. Nothing of the flower remained but the column, with the adhering
anthers and stigmatic lobes. The sepals and petals, including the
labellum, were eaten away. The snail was still clinging to the column,
and must have found some delicate food in the juices of such golden
petals to cause him to tear the flower apart. He may, however, have
fertilized the species in the act; yet the destruction of its parts would
have weakened the possible chances of the seed-capsule maturing properly.
[Illustration: =A Colony of the Small Yellow Fragrant Moccasin-Flower=
(_Cypripedium parviflorum_) =in the Glen of Comus, District Fourteen,
Pownal, Vermont.=
“_There’s a haunt I would lead you to,_
_Home of the gossamer and the dew._
_Where, from out of the murky loam,_
_Springs the sacred flower of the gnome._”
CLINTON SCOLLARD.]
In the bend of Ball Brook, amid the ferns, the Tall Northern Green Orchis
(_Habenaria hyperborea_) blooms, its seeds having floated down here from
the seed-capsules ripening on plants bordering the stream above.
Wild Ginger-Root (_Asarum Canadense_) grows abundantly along the
sphagnous edges of the Swamp of Oracles. This plant produces bell-shaped
blossoms, which invariably turn downward, hiding in the soft soil beneath
the leaves. Its creeping roots are of a spicy, ginger-like flavor. The
leaves—kidney-shaped—appear as small burdocks at a distance. The generic
name is very obscure, although the plant was known to the early Greeks,
and later known in Latin as _Asarum_, _Nardus rustica_, and _Perpensa_.
Macer called it _Vulgago_, while it was known in England and Germany in
1578 as _Asarabacca_, _Folefoot_, and _Hazlewort_. It was used by the
ancients as an antidote for venomous serpent bites, sciatica, difficult
respiration, and various other diseases.
On June 15th I made my farewell journey to Etchowog. Turning into the
thicket, east of the Barber Mill, I followed a path as far as possible,
and then waded through sphagnum into a meadow-like clearing of three
acres or more, concealed in the deepest of solitude. It was closed in
on all sides by low alders, willows, and beautiful green spires of
tamarack-trees. The sphagnum was many feet deep, spangled with flowers;
and rising above the swamp grasses were iris blades and buckbean leaves.
It was a little world whose limitations were the infinite blues above,
the depths of moss below, and the circling green-fringed forest trees.
The sunshine knew the field, and poured in upon it. I was obliged to wade
slowly over the quaking sphagnum, assisted by pine-slabs, strewn about as
stepping blocks.
The oblong green leaves of the rare Buckbeans (_Menyanthes
trifoliata_)—found also in the Cranberry Bogs, north of Pownal Pond—were
here thickly entangled over the greater area of the meadow. A few spikes
still were in blossom, although the greater portion were adorned with
the bullet-like glossy, smooth seed-pods. Later in the season they
would slowly ripen, and throw thousands of seeds broadcast over the
sphagnous field. It is evident that this plant—so infrequent in its
general distribution—is most productive of its own seeds in its chosen
haunts. This species is a sister genus of the Blue-Fringed Gentians,
abundant along the edges of these bogs during October. Gentians derived
their generic name from King Gentius of Illyria, who first used them in
medicine.
The Floating-Heart (_Limnanthemum lacunosum_), closely allied to the
Buckbeans, grows also in our marshy pools, the leaves being heart-shaped,
instead of oblong as those of _Menyanthes_.
In the middle of this swamp an island arose, over which grew willow
bushes and tamarack spires, interspersed by grape-vines. I crawled
through the bushes without finding a flower worthy of description.
Surrounding the edges of this island, tall spikes of the Fragrant
Northern Orchis (_Habenaria dilatata_) rose above the water-soaked
sphagnum. I was able to reach a few of them, then sought the _terra
firma_ of the tangled swamp beyond. I ran great risk, since I was forced
to wade the soaking bogs where the cat-tail flags were dense. I managed
to jump from hummock to hummock, not waiting for the grass to grow
beneath my feet. Beyond I struggled through the low tangled trees covered
with the Wild Frost Grape-Vines or Possum-Grape (_Vitis cordifolia_),
amid tamaracks, swamp-maples, poison-sumach and ivy-vines. I observed
many enormous colonies of Pitcher Plants, still in bloom in the shades.
Finally I reached the muddy bank of Ball Brook, ragged, dirty, and tired.
I found the stream impassable because of the mud. Even old Major had
sense enough not to go too near the stream. I was forced to make my way,
as well as possible, back to the mill, among piles of old tinware that
had been accumulating since the early Revolutionary days of 1777.
Once out of this place, it was a pleasure to enter the open Pitcher Plant
Meadow, where I searched for Pogonias and Limodorums without success. I
circled about the swamp and turned away from it at the north, climbing
over the hill above the Washon Bridge, toward Cranberry Swamp. Blue jays
were screaming loudly, and catbirds were mewing in the bushes near the
pools. I found the path near the pond, which led through luxuriant ferns
to the shades of pines beyond. Here the ground was carpeted with fragrant
needles and cones. Bull-frogs croaked hoarsely in the swamp beneath the
lily-pads, and over the hillside crept yards of the evergreens known as
Ground-Pine (_Lycopodium obscurum_) and Club-Moss (_Lycopodium Selago_),
known to the Greeks as Wolf’s-Claw. This moss takes hold of the earth
with its small roots, like the claws of a wolf.
This corner of Etchowog was the home of the mosquito, and I was obliged
to use a bough of sweet-fern to keep the pests from devouring me.
“Fair insect! that, with threadlike legs spread out,
And blood-extracting bill, and filmy wing,
Does murmur, as thou slowly sail’st about,
...
Thou’rt welcome to the town—but why come here?”[46]
XV
White Oaks and Gregor Rocks
I can recall to mind the stillest summer hours, in which the
grasshopper sings over the mulleins, and there is a valor in
that time the bare memory of which is armor that can laugh
at any blow of fortune.—THOREAU, _Week on the Concord and
Merrimack Rivers_.
I had been on the trail for white Moccasin-Flowers for years; and on June
16th a lad of White Oaks Valley promised to guide me to the Forks of
Broad Brook, and show me a colony of absolutely White Lady’s Slippers.
We arrived at the junction of the Field Brook—where it crosses the White
Oaks Road near Richmond’s Farm—and turned our horse’s head through the
fields eastward along the rude loggers’ path travelled in winter. We
were obliged to cross fields of oats and potato vines in order to arrive
on the summit of these rounded hills. Here, amid the white birches and
sweet-fern bushes, we fastened our horse. Among these ferns and briars I
discovered five enormous orange-yellow mushrooms, which, apparently, were
of recent growth. They were gorgeous to behold, and smelled like new-made
bread, yet they were extremely poisonous. They were, upon examination,
found to spring from a socket, above which a ring encircled the stalk.
This is characteristic of genus _Amanita_ of this form of fungus. This
poisonous species with some susceptible people produces serious results
if only handled, or if its fragrance is inhaled. I collected three
specimens, however, and put them in my vasculum.
We now descended the slopes eastward leading to the Wilsey Lot, where
we found a road leading up through Broad Brook Valley to the Forks. The
path was bordered with tall, luxuriant brakes at least four feet high.
They were covered with dew, and brushing against them, we became wet
through. My guide was an alert observer, and darting off here and there
into the ravine, he brought forth gay blossoms of the Showy Queen of the
Moccasin-Flowers. As we proceeded, we came to a bend of the brook and
followed along high ledges of rock, where we crossed to the right over
the boulder-filled stream. A quarter of a mile more brought us to another
bend in the brook, and here we re-crossed, and at the left hand abruptly
climbed the hillside in the sphagnous bed of a rivulet. Here, my guide
said, were the Pure White Moccasin-Flowers. They proved to be pale pink
blossoms of the Showy Reginæ, however, and not, as I had hoped, the rarer
_Cypripedium candidum_, or even the albinos of _Cypripedium reginæ_.
It is said that in a swamp near the Forks both of the Yellow
Moccasin-Flowers bloom. American Mountain Laurel, the beautiful
Calico-bush, was in full bloom hereabout, so the day was not without some
new treasure found.
[Illustration: =The Mountain Laurel.= (_Kalmia latifolia._)
“_And all the rugged mountainside_
_Thro’ billowy curves is seen;_
_The roadsides meet in ample shade,_
_With showers of light and golden glooms,_
_And bubbling up the rocky ways_
_The clustered laurel blooms._”
ELAINE GOODALE.]
The wildness of Broad Brook Valley is delightful. The stream rises in
luxuriant swamps on the eastern summit of the Dome, between Stamford and
Haystack Mountains. The Forks along the stream are formed by this one
and others flowing down from Mount Hazen, which lies to the southeast of
the Dome. The valley is comparatively wide, and the stream, as its name
implies, is broad. The chasm bears scars of days when the heights to the
northeast were capped with glaciers, towering thousands of feet above the
present mutton-backed summits, which were formed into their dome-like
shapes by the erosions of this ice sheet. The channel of the stream is
full of tumbling boulders, and during April, when the snows are melting,
a wilder brook is unknown in the Hoosac Valley. Three seasons it has
become so rough and swollen that it has carried bridges and all else in
its course before it, threatening the houses and little chapel, as it
rushed downward to the Hoosac.
Bears inhabit these dark ravines, and wander close to the habitation of
man in the Hollow. Not far from where we collected our flowers, a bear
had been killed last season by two lads fishing in the stream. As I
left the glen, and drove out over the moss-grown hills, and through the
hollows, I found the ground red with wild strawberries. Needless to say,
I paused until I had my fill of this luscious fruit, and I carried a
birch-bark cornucopia of it away with me.
On June 18th I visited my great colony of Showy Reginæ in Rattlesnake
Swamp. As they were not yet unfolded in their perfection of magenta
coloring, I put up a warning on a tree near them not to rob the colony
until photographed,—fearing some fisherman would behold and gather the
blossoms. However, they were photographed successfully on the 20th.
The stumps and trees in this corner of the swamp are covered with dead
boughs, laden with lichens and reindeer moss. A kind of moss known as
_Usnea_ hangs from the boughs of the trees above. The whole region is
humid and luxuriant, and could almost deceive one into believing that
he was in the jungles of the Southlands, instead of among the glooms
of the Green Mountains. The beautiful Butterfly-fungus (_Polypores_)
is especially interesting throughout this swamp, growing on dead trees
and logs. Another pretty species, found on stumps and the earth, has
scarlet-tinted cups, nestling in early spring amid the mosses. The trees
and stones display both their gray and foliaceous lichens everywhere
hereabout; and in the fields, the smoking puff-balls burst beneath the
footsteps. Foxes Fire-Eyes is common in this region. It is decaying wood,
green in color, said to be full of threads of phosphorescent fungi.
During the night this wood gives out a soft, luminous light, which if it
happens to come from a large stump, often frightens both travellers and
horses along our woodland roads.
In the Swamp of Rattlesnake Brook may be found the Pitch or Torch-Pine
(_Pinus rigida_), shad-bushes, white and black birches, chestnuts,
high huckleberries, and small bushes of the Ague Tree (_Sassafras_),
which seem rare here, but are abundant in southern New York. The
odd spires of the double or black spruce are also found among the
denizens of this region. From May until late November the swamp brings
forth, in their season, arbutus, mountain snowberry vines, St. John’s
wort, low huckleberry, the evergreen leaves of _Gaultheria_, prince’s
pine, creeping evergreens, numerous rushes and sedges. Here, too, the
goldthread entangles the roots of mosses and trilliums, while the
Sundew (_Drosera rotundifolia_), creeps along the mossy sides of the
wood road, and in the deeper sphagnum about the stream. The rare Large
Whorled Pogonia (_Pogonia verticillata_), of the Orchid Family, has been
collected in this swamp for three seasons. This orchid is rare in New
England, save in Massachusetts and Connecticut. It was first found in
Vermont near High Bridge and Colchester by Messrs. Robbins and Oakes, the
pioneer botanists, who passed through the State in 1829. The delicate
emerald green leaves of Clintonia, marsh marigolds, Solomon’s seal,
Shin-Leaf (_Pyrola rotundifolia_), liverwort, wild briar-roses, lambkill,
blue lobelias, Labrador tea, yellow loosestrife, blue-fringed gentians,
innumerable ferns, the spikes of the Tall-Green Orchis, plants of the
Round-Leaved Orchis, the Pink Moccasin-Flower, and rarely the beautiful
orchid, _Arethusa bulbosa_—all of these conspire to make the region a
wilderness of beauty.
On an excursion to Thompson’s Brook, June 19th, near Meyers’s Sugar-Bush,
I collected ferns and iris. As I descended to the hemlocks, near the
waterfalls, I stumbled upon the late plants of the Showy Orchis (_Orchis
spectabilis_), in bloom—which were fully two weeks past the regular
flowering date. They had faded in the hills of Mosholu on May 19th.
I had heard of Wash-Tub Brook for years, and on July 5th started off to
explore the valley and the cliffs of Gregor Rocks above North Pownal.
A lime-rock ridge runs from the base of Mount Anthony southeasterly to
the Glebe in Witch Hollow region. The soil of the latter is principally
black slate, with outcropping boulders of marble and lime-rock. In 1899,
Mr. W. W. Eggleston of Rutland had visited this valley, and reported the
rare Rue-Wall Spleenwort and the Purple-stemmed Cliff-Brakes growing
abundantly on Gregor Rocks. I followed his path of cliff-climbing, as
nearly as possible. Now that the orchid season was practically ended, I
was giving my attention to hunting ferns, and I knew I should find them
among the lime-rock cliffs. I had recently collected the Walking Fern in
its native haunts. I proceeded up the valley of Wash-Tub Brook, passing
the limestone mills northward, toward Mount Anthony and Peckham’s Hollow.
Another stream, known as Hemlock Brook, flows down from the eastern
slopes of Perkins’ Hill, and joins the Wash-Tub stream near the lime
crushers. All the streams in this western corner of Pownal flow to the
Hoosac River, while the streams from the northern summits of the Dome and
Mount Œta flow northward to the Walloomsac.
[Illustration: =The Gregor Rocks, Hoosac Valley, from Pownal Centre,
Vermont.=]
For the greater part of the valley, Wash-Tub Brook flows through open
pasture lands. The bed is broad and shallow, strewn with numerous small
lime-rock boulders drifted down from the hills with the floods of spring.
The larger boulders wear scars and dimpled erosions of the glacial
period. I took time to explore the ledges above, where the depressions
reveal the terraces of an ancient lake. The prevailing evergreen trees
here appear to be hemlock and cedar—the American _Arbor Vitæ_—whose roots
cling to the cliffs, their green spires lending a touch of coloring to
the bare-faced walls.
I saw from the banks here the distant pot-hole formations in the brook,
from which the stream had taken its name. As I approached these marble
basins, I found three in succession—one above the other—following the
course of the stream—a narrow passage eroded through crystalline marble
and limestone. The first or lowermost one was like a small lakelet
overflowing its brim. The second one was a typical pot-hole, revolving
its stones in its whirling waters. The bowl was about six feet deep,
of a circular—or rather elliptical form, about twenty-six feet in
circumference. The stream entered through the middle of the northern rim,
and had eroded a spout-like gutter, causing the water to flow in a rapid,
seething manner as if poured into the basin below. Here the greenish
water boiled and whirled, finally with an added force leaping forth
through a deep spout over the lower rim of the pot, carrying with it
small stones and marble dust—the lower rim thus being worn away. As the
bowl becomes deeper, layers of rock will be cracked and broken, until
finally the pot-hole formation will be destroyed. The upper or third
basin is located in the harder portion of the lime and marble bed-rock,
portions of the marble being highly polished. The marble brook-bed
glittered in the noonday sunshine. Pot-holes are formed originally
by a boulder, which—carried in the currents of a stream—lodges in a
depression of the bed-rock. It bores gradually into its resting place,
until, in the course of ages, it has worn the walls of its basin into a
deep hollow, at the same time wearing itself away, at last being carried
off as a pebble. It may be that these holes are sometimes formed in a
slightly different way. Dimples and fissures often occur in rocks, and if
the water and pebbles circle about these cracks they probably eat down
through the soft layers of rock, and thus loosen a revolving stone from
the bed-rock itself. It would then fit the pot-hole closely for ages,
revolving as the currents become forceful in freshets. The pot-holes
along the granite ridges in Bronx Park, New York City, as well as on the
Canaan Hills—nearly one thousand feet above the Merrimac and Connecticut
river-beds,—reveal the erstwhile revolving stones now motionless in their
basins.
[Illustration: =The Pot-Hole of Wash-Tub Brook, Pownal, Vermont, Showing
the Stream Whirling through its Basin.=
“The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the
gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal
allowance of time.”—THOREAU.]
After remaining in the region of the Wash-Tubs an hour or more, I
followed down the lateral moraine or wooded ridge along the stream, which
became rocky in the heart of the hemlocks. Upon a broad table-like rock,
I found a large mat of Walking Ferns. It appeared about four feet square,
and contained the most luxuriant plants I have ever seen or expect
to see. I placed several in my vasculum, and descended to the stream,
hastening on toward the village. Here I met an old gray-haired man—the
inn-keeper for the mill laborers. He recognized my botanizing outfit,
and remarked that Mr. Eggleston had passed through the town in 1899. He
directed me to the Gregor Rocks, above the village, and thus I found the
path winding around the northern brow of these lime-rock cliffs.
Crossing the Pownal Centre road, I entered the pasture east of the
village church, and wound up the cliffs above the limekiln quarry. Here,
striking in among the cedar trees and ragged bluffs, I pulled myself up
under the trees and rocks. Resting for a moment, I beheld a fern which
proved to be the Purple-stemmed Cliff-Brake (_Pellæa atropurpurea_). Much
elated by my discovery, I fell to wondering what the little Wall-Rue
Spleenwort (_Asplenium Ruta-muraria_) could look like. I had studied the
plates of these rare ferns, but had not known them face to face. I soon
came to an enormous lime-rock boulder on the summit of Gregor Rocks, and
here I found the rare ferns for which I searched. From the crevices both
the tender green tufts of the Wall-Rue Spleenwort and the wiry purple
stems of the Cliff-Brake grew luxuriantly, draping the fissured sides of
the boulder. Climbing to the top of the boulder, I saw beyond my reach
a tuft of Walking Fern. This proved to me that this plant throve on the
dryest of lime-rocks in the full glare of the sun, as well as in damp
sheltered places. None of these species look like the ferns that are
ordinarily known, and unless one turns the leaves over and observes the
_sori_ or fruit dots, he would never guess to what family they belonged,
so different are they in appearance from their brothers of the boglands
and hillside pastures.
The rocks about were covered with tufts of the delicate Wall-Rue, and
great tangles of the Cliff-Brake, growing from twelve to fifteen inches
tall. The last year’s growth was still brown and rusty amid the fresh
green fronds of this season. Hardy indeed were these ferns, growing in
such a dry, exposed place.
Later in the month I made another trip to secure some ferns for
photographing. It was Sunday, and the church bells were ringing at
North Corners as I drove into the valley, and hitched my horse opposite
the village inn. As I went my way toward the haunts of the ferns, I
soon discovered that I was not making my ascent to the cliffs alone. A
gray-haired woman, with basket on her arm, overtook me. She seemed to be
gathering the bluebells along the ledges. We began to converse, and when
we came to some ripe strawberries, we ate in a social way the fruits we
found by the path. She told me she was gathering bluebells to decorate
the chancel of the church, as it was Children’s Day.
On the brow of Gregor Rocks I asked my companion if the legend were true,
of which Hawthorne writes, in 1838, during his stay in the valley at
North Adams: “A mad girl leaped from the top of a tremendous precipice
in Pownal, hundreds of feet high, and, if the tale be true, being buoyed
up by her clothes, came safely to the bottom.”[47] She told me the name
of the girl who had made the leap. She was a half-witted creature who,
descending the cliffs at twilight with a package of wool rolls, thought
to save time by throwing her burden ahead of her and leaping from the
rocks. Her homespun garments caught and held her in the cedars below,
until the villagers heard her screams and rescued her. The rocks are
called “Weeping Rocks”—for what reason it is not quite clear, unless
through some exaggeration of this story.
I collected some perfect ferns, and told my companion their names. She
glowed with interest, and told me she had never been to these cliffs
since she was a child, until now. She said if she had her life to live
again, she would have devoted more time to exploring these rugged hills
and vales. Soon our baskets were filled, and with a warm handclasp we
parted.
I proceeded up Wash-Tub Brook, and secured some fresh plants of the
Walking Fern in Hemlock Glen; then I returned to my horse. I was laden
with rare treasures from the roadsides before I reached Mount Œta, late
in the afternoon.
Many of the present names of ferns, lichens, and mosses originated with
the ancients. Dioscorides knew and designated two kinds of fern. They
were thought to put forth no seed in those days, since they produced no
flowers—except as Dodoens in 1578 wrote: “We shall take for seede the
blacke spots growing on the backside of the leaves, the which some do
gather thinking to worke wonders, but to say the truth, it is nothing
else but trumperie and superstition.”[48]
The Osmunda, Polypody, Oak-Fern, Hart’s-Tongue, Spleenwort, Asplenium,
Venus-Hair and Maiden-Hair, as well as the delicate _Ruta-Muraria_—the
Wall-Rue found on Gregor Rocks—were described clearly by the earliest
herbalists. These records are full of errors and confusion, since the
natural affinity of these species was not then known.
The Lichens were known also as “Stone-Liverworts (_Hepatica_), found
with wrinkled, crimpled leaves on the ground or moist sweating rocks,
where the sun shines seldom,” according to Dodoens. Among the list of
mosses described, I discover that our Round-Leaved Sundew, the little
carnivorous plant, was anciently classed as a species of moss, in close
relation with the Ground and Club mosses known as _Lycopodium_. But the
Sundew, unlike the mosses, produces a stalk with white flowers. The plant
was considered strange, because the stronger shone the sun upon the
round, reddish leaves, the more moist with drops of dew became the plant;
for this reason it was called in Latin, _Ros Solis_, which became in
English _Sundew_, in 1578.
[Illustration: =An Ancient Pot-Hole, Showing an Erstwhile Revolving
Stone, Located on the Granite Ridge, near the Wolf’s Den, Bronx Park, New
York City.=
“The stones which completed their revolutions perhaps before thoughts
began to revolve in the brain of man. The periods of Hindoo and Chinese
history, though they reach back to the time when the race of mortals
is confounded with the race of gods, are as nothing compared with
the periods which these stones have inscribed. That which commenced
a rock when time was young, shall conclude a pebble in the unequal
contest.”—THOREAU.]
The Wall-Rue Fern was thought to resemble the Garden Rue, but is much
smaller. Rue-of-the-Wall was common in Germany and England in 1578, and
was found upon old moist cathedral walls where the sun did not shine.
It was originally called, in apothecary shops, _Capillus-Veneris_,
_Adiantum_; and in France _Saluia vita_ and _Ruta-Muraria_. There were
two varieties of this fern, designated in Europe as _Venus-Haire_
or _Lumbardie Maiden-Haire_, in 1578. The larger species grew
commonly about well-springs, in walls in Italy. It was known as
_Capillus-Veneris_,—named by the ancients _Adiantum_. This fern has hairy
foot-stalks, small, blackish leaves, snipped around. This species is, no
doubt, our Venus-Hair Fern, known to-day as _Adiantum Capillus-Veneris_.
The Walking Fern was known to Linnæus by the name of _Asplenium_, species
of this genus being used against diseases of the spleen and liver. It was
unknown to Dodoens in 1578. The Purple-stemmed Cliff-Brake was originally
known as a species of _Pteris_, a name suggested because these ferns
resemble the wings of birds.
Our native species of Bluebells of New England are emigrants from Europe,
and are closely allied with the Bellflowers of Europe. These flowers
were likened to cathedral-bells, with a small white clapper hung in the
middle. These were, according to Lyte, found in Coventry and Canterbury,
England, 1578, opening after “Sunne-rising,” and closing toward
“Sunne-set.” Theophrastus knew these flowers centuries before Christ,
while Pliny designated them in Latin _Iosione_.
Our Bluebell (_Campanula_) derived its generic name from _campana_, the
Italian for a bell. The species found on Gregor Rocks are known as
_Campanula rotundifolia_, signifying round-leaved bells. The original
Bluebells of Europe were known in 1578 as _Campanula cœrulea_, from
whence the common name originated. That of the “Bluebells of New England”
originated with Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in his poem on these flowers.[49]
[Illustration: =The Bluebells of New England.= (_Campanulæ rotundifolia._)
“_The roses are a regal troup,_
_And modest folks the daisies;_
_But, Bluebells of New England,_
_To you I give my praises._”
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.]
Between the 15th and 19th of July I made journeys over the nearer hills.
I visited Oak Hill above White Oaks Valley, where I found the bluebells
abundant along the roadside walls, even growing in the dooryard fences
of the dwellers thereabout. I had never visited this hill before, and
was charmed with its “glen-like seclusion.” It was known as “Nigger
Hill” before White Oaks Chapel was built in the vale below, because of
the colored population of this place. It is situated in the shadow of
the Dome and Mount Hazen, surrounded on the northern and eastern sides
by wild, primeval forests. The broad, sloping meadows were among the
first to be cleared in this region, and wear the scars that follow in the
trail of the woodman. In the time of the Rebellion, many slaves sought
the seclusion of this valley, and built their shanties snugly by the
brooks. Until quite recently, the roads of the Hollow and the streets
of Williamstown were frequented by one of these ancient slaves, known
as “Old Abe-the-Bunter,” who used to sell huckleberries and arbutus,
and who sawed wood for the students at Williams. His real name was
Abraham Parsons. The title “Bunter” was affixed on account of a horny
growth projecting from his forehead, which he used sometimes after the
manner of a goat. At one time, many years ago, a number of students and
White-Oakers made a wager with Uncle Abe, which he won by butting through
the heavy oak head of a molasses hogshead. It is also reported that
after this, some students, putting a grindstone into a sack, told Uncle
Abe it was a _tough cheese_. The old negro gave it a terrific bunt and
cracked the stone, but nearly killed himself by the operation. He is said
later to have killed a horse with which he had become enraged, by one
blow of this horny growth. Carroll Perry has published a college book in
which Uncle Abe figures in one chapter. It is entitled _Bill Pratt, the
Saw-Horse Philosopher_.
Civilization and the selling of the streams for the North Adams
water-supply has caused the removal of all the shanties along the Hollow
Road. Only the old George Adams cottage remains as an example of the
original type.
The region of White Oaks formerly included all the rocky hills and swamps
now known as Colesville and Riverside, and has received its name from the
abundance of white oak timber in this locality, utilized by the colored
people in making baskets which they peddle in town. Many years ago,
three very large white-oak trees stood east of the house known as Old
Stone Tavern, near Broad Brook bridge. This building still stands—in a
deplorable condition—as a tenement house. It is over a century old, built
in the Revolutionary days by Silas Stone, who kept tavern when stages
ran between Pittsfield, Bennington, and Troy.
On July 18th I made a tour of the limestone ridge above the Gulf Road,
known as the Glebe. It is the most desolate and unproductive soil in the
whole town. In the early townships of the New Hampshire Grants, Governor
Benning Wentworth required “One Share for a Glebe for the Church of
England as by Law Established,” and another for schools. These lands,
therefore, are to-day called “minister lots” and “school lots.” The
occupants, instead of paying taxes, pay lease money for the use of the
land, which is appropriated according to the vote of the town’s people
for the support of ministers and schools.
Beginning northwest of the Swamp of Oracles, over the Amidon fields, one
finds the limestone bed-rock cropping out everywhere. Little rounded
hills appear to jut out of the deeper swamps leading toward Iris Swamp
on Ball Farm, as one rides along the Pownal Centre Road. Great lime-rock
boulders and piles of loosened rock lie strewn over the fields. One
enormous boulder may be observed by the road north of Amidon’s house,
and another near the Peleg Card house. I collected innumerable Walking
Ferns scattered over these miniature hills and boulders. I proceeded
northward to the Campbell horseshoeing shop, in the woods beyond, and
turned to the left toward the ridges of the Glebe. Searching the rocks
along the edges of the road, I found—perched high on a point of rocks—a
beautiful colony of the rare Ebony Spleenwort (_Asplenium platyneuron_),
not common hereabout. Over the mossy rocks below I again found numerous
mats of Walking Fern. In finding these two ferns so closely associated, I
searched for the rarer hybrid of these ferns, known as Scott’s Spleenwort
(_Asplenium ebenoides_), but did not find it. It has been seen but once
or twice in Vermont, to my knowledge, being more frequent in southern New
England, Alabama, and Virginia, where it ascends fourteen hundred feet
above the sea level.
[Illustration: =Three Rare Ferns from Gregor Rocks and Wash-Tub Brook
Region, Pownal, Vermont. 1. Rue-in-the-Wall Spleenwort.= (_Asplenium
Ruta-muraria._) =2. Purple-Stemmed Cliff-Brake.= (_Pellæa atropurpurea._)
=3. Walking Fern.= (_Camptosorus rhizophyllus._)]
The rich soil amid the hollows above was covered with the strange
Grape-Fern, locally called Umbrella-Fern (_Botrychium Virginianum_).
Maiden-Hair and numerous other common ferns and brakes filled the swamps
below. Coming from the woods, I entered a hayfield where the mowers
were at work. Beyond this, I entered a cow-pasture skirting the Glebe
ridge. Here were deep hollows guttered out, leading northward to Pownal
Centre. Pennyroyal grew over the parched, dry plains, and in the hot
sun shed forth its aromatic perfume. Boulders and natural obelisks were
lodged on the hills above. In character the latter are similar to rocking
stones, that are so finely poised on the mutton-backed bed-rock, that
with pressure they sway slightly. The obelisks are either pillar-like
boulders moored in the mud and soil, or formed along cliffs by the heat,
frost, and wind erosions, causing them to appear like columns or broken
monuments, in the distance.
On the rocks of the Glebe hills, I again collected the Walking-Fern,
and I am sure that if I were to penetrate the cliffs of the gulf along
the western slopes of this ridge, I should find the Rue-of-the-Wall and
Purple-stemmed Cliff-Brake.
Far away in the hollow, slept the little village of Pownal Centre. The
church steeple towered among the trees, and the village green sloped
between the church and the old Revolutionary road.
[Illustration: =The Rocking Boulder, Located on the Granite Ridge near
the Bear’s Den, in the Zoölogical Garden, Bronx Park, New York City. A
pressure of fifty pounds causes this boulder to move about two inches.=
“These, and such as these, must be our antiquities, for lack of human
vestiges.... The walls that fence our fields, as well as modern Rome, and
not less the Parthenon itself, are all built of ruins.”—THOREAU.
From photograph by George Stonebridge.]
XVI
Alpine Blossoms of the Dome
Mountains seem to have been built for the human race, as
at once their schools and cathedrals; full of treasures of
illuminated manuscript for the scholar, kindly in simple
lessons for the worker, quiet in pale cloisters for the
thinker, glorious in holiness for the worshipper.—JOHN RUSKIN.
Of the swamps and domes of the Hoosac region, Henry Ward Beecher once
said: “The most level portion of this region, if removed to Illinois,
would be an eminent hill. The region is a valley only because the
mountains on the east and west are so much higher than the hills in the
intermediate space. The endless variety of such a country never ceases
to astonish and please. At every ten steps the aspect changes; every
variation of atmosphere, and therefore every hour of the day, produces
new effects. It is everlasting company to you. It is, indeed, just like
some choice companion of rich heart and genial imagination, never twice
alike, in mood, in conversation, in radiant sobriety, or half-bright
sadness, bold, tender, deep, various.”
On July 19th I drove beyond the Bogs of Etchowog, over a portion of the
Hill Road toward Bennington. As I passed the Elijah Mason Farm, I turned
my horse’s head through the cow-pastures to the east. In a swamp to
the left of the grassy wood-road, I collected scattered Pogonias and
Limodorums, although the season was late for them. Still farther eastward
are impenetrable swamps, through which Ball Brook flows northward to the
Walloomsac near Bennington. The road led around to another swamp farther
eastward, toward which I drove. It was one of those wild regions, tangled
with tamarack, balsam-firs, high-huckleberry trees, amid the peat and
sphagnum. The green spires of tamarack and fir swayed in billowy waves as
the wind breathed through these vales; and the sunshine drew forth the
fragrance of pitch and balsamic resins from the blistered bark of these
young trees.
I fastened my horse to a pine tree, and penetrated the depths of this
swamp as far as I dared, along a moss-grown brook bed leading from a
spring toward the interior. The heart of this region was impenetrable.
The pioneers, settling along the valley of Ball Brook, chose in
Revolutionary days this heavily timbered region, in preference to the
lower swamps of the deeper vales of the Hoosac. It has proven to be the
coldest, most desolate, and barren soil for corn and grains,—the most
productive crops here being stumps and boulders! Shad-bushes and the
high-huckleberry bushes were laden with berries. I stood upon a log and
ate of them for some time, meanwhile listening to the choruses of locusts
and numerous thrushes, screaming jays, young crows, and whistling hawks.
Many distant sounds came whispering to me from out this wild solitude
of Nature. The mystery of wild wood isolation, in the presence of the
scars of ages, took possession of me, and filled me with a nameless
fear. I gave vent to a wild howl in order to relieve the tensity and
portentousness of the situation. It was a damp, mossy place, such as
bears, lynxes, and wild cats choose in which to nap during the day,
being located in their run from the Petersburgh Hills to the Dome of
the Green Mountains eastward, above. As Thoreau described one of the
Maine woods swamps: “It was ready to echo the growl of a bear, the howl
of a wolf, or the scream of a panther; but when you get fairly into the
middle of one of these grim forests, you are surprised to find that the
larger inhabitants are not at home commonly, but have left only a puny
red squirrel to bark at you. Generally speaking, a howling wilderness
does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the
howling.”[50]
I ventured on farther east, until I came to the true spring of the swamp.
Every swampy region reveals innumerable springs, and this swamp was no
exception. Many were oozing through the carpets of moss. Around such
fountains I searched for the familiar leaves of Moccasin-Flowers without
success.
I returned to the open pastures, all fear of the wilderness having
subsided. I looked about, and saw from the lay of the land that this
had been the bed of a glacial lake. It is in such regions as these that
fossil remains of the whale and mastodon have been found. A fossil whale
was found in Charlotte, Vermont, sixty feet above the level of the lake
and one hundred and fifty feet above sea level. In Swanton, in a ledge
of rock blasted through for railroad purposes, a large deposit of fossil
marine shells was found. Also fossil bones of the elephant were found in
Brattleboro.
Beyond the Howling Swamp, an interesting glacial hill rises, dividing the
swamp from the broader valley of Ball Brook beyond. The lower southern
brow of this hill had been eroded by the currents formerly flowing over
the ridge when a larger lake existed here. From the summit of this hill,
one becomes conscious that not so long ago wide waters spread about. Two
currents are evident,—one from the glaciated Dome, flowing westward,
and one from the ice-capped heights of Mount Anthony, southeastward;
the two currents mingling and rushing westward over the Glebe toward
Pownal Centre and the natural dam at Gregor Rocks, toward the Hudson
Valley and the sea. Slowly—as the dam in the valley broke away and let
the ice-currents out—the mountain lakes were drained off, and left these
bare, round hills and deep, swampy hollows, where as soon as the climates
grew temperate, forests of evergreens sprang up and flowers bloomed.
Northward, toward Bennington, as far as the eye can see, one discerns a
chain of rounded wooded hills and intervening swamps.
On my way homeward, I stopped at the Swamp of Oracles, and decided to
climb up the sides of the ravine for a look at the Large Round-Leaved
Orchis, found here in June. I passed through Clintonia Hollow, beyond
the woodchuck’s home, where I had observed the Small Round-Leaved
Orchis in the little animal’s dooryard. There I struck out westward up
the hillside. I frightened up the same mother whippoorwill that I had
disturbed earlier in the season. The little birds of the second brood
were now large, and commencing to feather. They were fluffy, and of a
dead-leaf yellowish-brown color. Their large, round, brown eyes were like
small shoe buttons. They began to run about at sight of me. The mother,
meanwhile, feigned a broken wing and moaned piteously, with actual tears
in her sad eyes. I lifted the downy balls in my hands. They snuggled
without fear in my sleeve, and closed their sleepy eyes. Finally I put
them on the leaves together, and promised the mother I would not again
disturb her.
We have two species of the Goatsucker Family (_Caprimulgidæ_),
including the Whippoorwill (_Antrostomus vociferus_), and the Southern
Whippoorwill, or Chuck-will’s-widow (_Antrostomus Carolinensis_). The
closely allied Night-Hawk, or Bull-Bat (_Chordeiles Virginianus_), is
often mistaken for the Northern Whippoorwill. Its habits and flight are
far different, however, although the homes of both are similarly adopted.
The Night-Hawk deposits her two buff-green eggs on rocks, bare ground, or
on flat roofs, either in country or village. All of these birds winter
in the Southern lands, and all save the Chuck-will’s-widow arrive here
about the third week in May, returning with their broods the latter part
of September.
The Twilight-Hawk preys upon other birds and moths. I have observed
him at twilight, on a cloudy day in autumn, circling and diving down
among the weeds about a potato field, where sparrows were feeding in
great numbers. The sparrows flew in fear toward the house, one driving
so forcefully against the window-pane that he dropped to the ground
with a broken neck. This Night-Hawk gives forth a peculiar moan or
call,—“Peent,”—accompanied by a booming, buzzing sound in flight, as
the wind passes through the quills of its feathers. It whizzes swiftly
through the air, swooping down upon its prey about the fields or garden.
The leaves of the Pink Moccasins—sometimes called
Whippoorwill’s-Shoes—were numerous about the place, the flowers serving,
near the ever-changing nests, to attract the insects and moths upon which
the birds feed.
I found another oven-bird’s thatched nest in Witch Hollow region, late
in June, very near the colony of Ram’s-Head Cypripediums. On my return
to secure a photograph of it, I found that some animal—perhaps a dog or
skunk—had torn the nest to pieces and devoured the birdlings.
The Small Round-Leaved Orchis, which formerly I observed in Chalk Pond
region, has developed into the varietal form of this species—producing
oblong leaves—known as _Habenaria oblongifolia_. This often occurs
when the flower is in company with the true Round-Leaved Orchis. This
season I have instanced the fact in another colony of these orchids, in
Rattlesnake Swamp.
The flowers found on the summit of the Dome, three thousand feet above
sea level, are slightly modified in size and coloring. They are fully two
or three weeks later in blooming than the same species flourishing in the
Hoosac Lowlands.
On July 20th, with two other mountain climbers, I started from the brow
of Mount Œta, and at nine o’clock descended to Rattlesnake Swamp and
the secret haunts of Showy Reginæ. We crossed the stream over the log
bridge, and followed up the old Joe Larabee path; passing around the
southern ledge of the Domelet to the Dummy Road watering-trough. The path
was densely overgrown with bushes, and impeded with heaps of tree-tops.
However, we finally came out to the Exford Clearing and the White Oaks
Road beyond. At the watering-trough, a road turns to the right hand
through Rocky Hollow, leading to the Coal-Bed, or Chip-Bed, as it is
known. We sauntered along the shady path of the Hollow until we came to
the clearing, where loggers in winter haul and pile their spruce and
hemlock logs for later milling. From this station, four roads branch in
various directions. We took the northeast path, and were soon climbing
steadily toward the clouds. On a previous occasion, during March, I had
ridden on a logger’s sleigh to the summit. The snow, then about four feet
deep, covered fallen trees, over which, during summer, it is almost
impossible to walk. In winter, the hardened, encrusted snow spreads a
clear, smooth surface for walking, far above impassable barriers and
tangled brush. In its summer garb, the road was strangely confusing to
me. It was rocky, and intersected by sun-dried brook beds, which the
melting snows had guttered in spring.
Rocky Hollow Road is available for horse and carriage as far as Logger’s
Depot, and northward to the Dummy Road. The trees along this vale are
chestnuts, beech, yellow, white, and black birch, white oak, black oak,
maples, and various flowering bushes, such as azalea, mountain laurel,
and shad trees. As one ascends, the trees become dwarfed and gnarled,
and many abnormal forms occur among the yellow birch. As we neared the
summit, the yellow birch trunks assumed great size, while their tops
were scraggy and dwarfed by the winds and storms. Higher up, we found
little but spruce, hemlock, and balsam-fir; the trees and bushes became
low-lying,—hugging the rocks for protection from the winds.
Frequently we paused by the path for breath, finding sweet Canada Violets
(_Viola Canadensis_) ripening their seed-capsules. They were ready to
burst and throw their seeds about for some feet. We collected several
plants to transplant. The brakes and sphagnum indicated a swamp not far
distant. We began to feel thirsty, and searched about without finding
trace of a spring, although one is said to be near here, with a rusty
tin cup hung to a tree. To the left of the path, we saw the ruins of a
wood-chopper’s log cabin, which assured us that brook or spring must be
near, else the spot never would have been chosen for man’s habitation.
Above the hut, we came to a clearing. A level stretch led to the junction
of two roads: one led directly ahead, terminating on the Ladd Lot, while
the path to the right turned abruptly up the steeps to the summit of the
Dome. The last few rods were the steepest portion of the whole journey,
the rest of the climb having wound around about in gradual ascent.
At last we walked along the edges of a precipice above Bear Swamp. In
the scorching heat of noon we made one last turn eastward, entering the
clearing on the very brow of the desolate Dome, three thousand feet above
the sea. Here were dense groups of beautiful spruces and balsam-firs. The
forest floor was carpeted with luxuriant leaves of clintonia and dwarf
dogwood,—sometimes wrongly called bear-berries. The latter, an Alpine
species, was still in bloom, the flower sometimes having two whorls
of rosy-tinted petals. The mountain snowberry, creeping wintergreen,
trailing arbutus, and goldthread were clinging to the sphagnous hummocks
over the summit, while Alpine species of huckleberries crept through the
clearing and draped the white-faced rocks.
The great stillness of Nature’s solitude was broken only by the buzzing
of insects, the notes of the chickadees, and the winds soughing through
the boughs of spruce and firs. The brow of the Majestic Dome receives the
force of the eight winds of heaven direct from the frozen North or from
the fragrant Southlands. In March, 1894, a terrific tornado swept over
this region from the northeast, mowing a path several rods wide over the
Dome, and laying the spruce and firs in a twisted pile;—that portion of
the summit is almost impassable to-day. During these great northeasters
in the spring, the birds and beasts of the Dome seek the lower plains and
hollows.
We wandered southward in the path of the tornado, a quarter mile or so,
to a sphagnous swamp and the ledge of White Rock on the side of the Dome.
The view from these rocks is variable, yet not picturesque nor pastoral
as the one from Mount Œta. It is wild, fearful,—beyond all signs or
sounds of civilization. Far to the southwest the blue Catskills blend
with the sky; southward the grim, awkward, ragged shoulders of Greylock’s
Brotherhood tower; from the eastern brow, Haystack and Stamford Mountains
roll away, one after the other, like great land waves. The deep valley
of Broad Brook sleeps below. The slopes of Stamford Mountains are dotted
with evergreen trees for miles, as far as one can see.
Gathering a few fragrant balsam-fir boughs, we now rapidly began to
descend the mountain, for while the luncheon we carried had satisfied
our hunger, we were sadly in need of drinking water. We soon found
ourselves at the Coal-Bed, gathering the Wildwood Tiger Lilies (_Lilium
Philadelphicum_), which we had observed as we passed in the morning.
We ate the late wild strawberries along the roadside, and took a long
rest in the shade, pursuing our way later down the Rocky Hollow Road
northward to Blackberry Clearing, on the Dummy Farm. Here we religiously
searched the ravines for Deaf-Man’s Spring. Major, our dog, was the first
to discover it. We found him taking a bath in the deepest pool. However,
a higher basin was overflowing with fresh, clean water, from which we
drank excessively. The reviving effect upon our spirits was immediate.
Deaf-Man’s Fountain is in the ravine of Dry Brook, walled up like a
little well. It is the only water in this immediate vale,—a natural and
everlasting spring-head. Guide-boards should be erected at the four
corners of country roads, directing travellers to the water-supply, the
need of which is often so powerfully felt by pilgrims.
[Illustration: =The Red Wood Lily.= (_Lilium Philadelphicum._)
“_O lilies, upturned lilies,_
_How swift their prisoned rays_
_To smite with fire from Heaven_
_The fainting August days!_”
ELAINE GOODALE.]
We rounded the Domelet, descended to Jepson Farm in Rattlesnake Valley,
and proceeded to Lloyd Spring and the colony of Showy Reginæ. At this
point in our travels, we had completed a great circle.
XVII
The Cascade and Bellows-Pipe, Notch Valley, Berkshire County
Come here where Greylock rolls
Itself toward heaven; in these deep silences
World-worn and fretted souls
Bathe and be clean! Cares drift like mists away.
Author Unknown.
Monday, July 22d, dawned fair, although there were some signs of a storm
in the lowering gray cloud-folds at the horizon. However, we had decided
to explore the Notch Valley and the Bellows-Pipe, between Greylock and
the Ragged Mountains.
We journeyed from Mount Œta to North Adams, leaving State Street about
ten o’clock, and ascended the path to Witt’s Ledge. Soon we rounded
the Ragged Mountains, entering the woods near Crystal Spring, where we
descended the Cascade ravine. Its rocky chasm is beautifully draped with
the Common Polypody Ferns, and delicate tufts of Maiden-Hair Spleenwort,
which clings in the fissured ledges. The bed-rock appears to be a flinty
slate, similar to that of the Tunnel Mountain. It is not so favorable
to the growth of the rarer ferns—such as the Rue-in-the-Wall—as the
lime-rock formation of Gregor Rocks in Pownal. Large boulders lie in
the heart of the brook bed, and the hillsides are clothed with primeval
hemlocks. Just above the brow of the Cascade, I found a few Walking
Ferns. The ravine is accessible to this point, but here I was forced
back and climbed the southern bank to the path leading around to the
waterfalls. High boots supplied with hob-nails are indispensable to
safety in such climbing in the channels of streams.
[Illustration: =The Cascade of Notch Brook, at the Base of Mount
Greylock’s Brotherhood, North Adams, Massachusetts.=
“_The highest lands of Berkshire’s noble hills_
_Shall sweetly ring with song and louder trills;_
_And many a spring within the Bellows dumb_
_Shall swell and flow with swift, yet soothing hum._”
G. G. N.]
From this point we retraced our steps to the Pent Road, leading up
through Snuff Hollow to the City’s reservoir, at the junction of the
South Adams Road. Here we trudged up the hill and entered the Notch
highway at Walden’s farmhouse. Greylock Park Road turns off here through
the pastures, around Mount Williams. We, however, continued straight
ahead toward the source of The Notch Brook,—Hawthorne’s and Thoreau’s
routes, long before roads to Greylock were available. It was steady
climbing, until at last we reached the pasture-land where the streams
from Greylock’s Brotherhood divide; there is a stream beyond the ridge,
flowing southward to South Adams, while those on the north side flow down
Notch Valley to the Hoosac River. Hawthorne often sought the seclusion
of this valley, and in his _American Notes_, under date of September 9,
1838, describes these rugged slopes. He not only followed up the North
Notch, but descended the South Notch in the rocky course of the stream
homeward through South Adams. He speaks of inquiring at a cottage his way
to South Village, which was “across lots,” into the road near the Quaker
Meeting-house, surrounded by grave-stones. He also drank of the region’s
spring water,—the “most delicious” he ever tasted,—“pure, fresh, almost
sparkling, exhilarating,—such water as Adam and Eve drank.”[51]
The people of this region looked upon his journeys through their valley
with curiosity in those early days. The houses were more numerous then
than now in the extreme southern portion of the valley. This region has
been purchased by the North Adams Water Company, which has removed all
dwellings above the reservoir. The last house in The Notch to-day is on
the Walden Farm, at Greylock Park Gate.
Hawthorne found, in the Highlands-of-the-Hoosac, the originals of many
characters described in his works. “Eustace Bright,” of _Wonder-Book_,
was a student of Williams; and the _Tanglewood Tales_ have made the whole
world familiar with “rough, broken, rugged, headlong Berkshire.” Here,
in the seclusion of The Bellows-Pipe, “where it slopes upward to the
skies,” Hawthorne loved best to come. There he could look southward over
the vast fields of Berkshire’s valleys to the distant crags of Bryant’s
“Monument Mountain,” immortalized as the “headless sphinx” of his own
_Wonder-Book_. And from the northern Notch, he looked away to the blue
Domes of the White Mountains, a distance of sixty miles or more.
The Limekilns along the Ashuilticook—the south branch of the
Hoosac—still are smoking, as when Hawthorne and Mr. Leach visited them in
1838. The tale of _Ethan Brand_ was suggested by the legend of an insane
creature who threw himself in at the open gate of the burning kiln. Their
open iron doors in the mountainside at night seem like yawning mouths
of Tartarus. Hawthorne met here also his “Bertram,” who figures in the
story; while “the boy Joe,” son of “Bertram, the lime-burner,” was a
bar-room lad observed at the “Whig Tavern” in North Adams. Daniel Haines,
then living in a desolate hut in “Willow Dell,” was formerly nicknamed in
the village as “Black Hawk,” and is described in _Ethan Brand_ as “Lawyer
Giles,” the “elderly ragmuffin,” who—with the rest of the lazy regiment
from the town tavern—came in response to the summons of “boy Joe” to see
poor Brand returned from his long “search after the Unpardonable Sin.”
The title of this story was the name of one of the prose master’s Salem
acquaintances.
Among other characters which Hawthorne drew from this region, were the
“seven doctors of the place.” In the “Whig Tavern boarder” Hawthorne
saw and delineated himself. He describes the Saddleback Mountain and
Greylock in all their different phases,—when enshrouded with dark masses
of storm clouds and when: “Old Greylock was glorified with a golden cloud
upon his head. Scattered likewise over the breasts of the surrounding
mountains, there were heaps of hoary mist, in fantastic shapes, some of
them far down into the valley, others high up toward the summits, and
still others, of the same family of mist or cloud, hovering in the gold
radiance of the upper atmosphere. Stepping from one to another of the
clouds that rested on the hills, and thence to the loftier brotherhood
that sailed in air, it seemed almost as if a mortal man might thus ascend
into the heavenly regions. Earth was so mingled with sky, that it was a
day dream to look at it. To supply that charm of the familiar and homely,
which Nature so readily adopts into a scene like this, the stage-coach
was rattling down the mountain-road, and the driver sounded his horn,
while Echo caught up the notes, and intertwined them into a rich and
varied and elaborate harmony, of which the original performer could lay
claim to little share. The great hills played a concert among themselves,
each contributing a strain of airy sweetness.”[52]
As we neared the head of The Bellows-Pipe, and passed the Wilbur and Eddy
farms, where Thoreau was entertained, I tried to trace the paths which
he had followed in his ascent to Greylock some years after Hawthorne
sojourned here. He stopped that July afternoon in North Adams Village,
purchased a tin cup, a little rice and sugar, and, placing them in his
knapsack, started up The Bellows toward the mountains, followed closely
by a thunderstorm. “The thunder had rumbled at my heels all the way,” he
said, “but the shower passed off in another direction, though if it had
not, I half believed that I should get above it.” He “reached the last
house but one, where the path to the summit diverged to the right, while
the summit itself rose directly in front.” But it seems he “determined
to follow up the valley to its head,” and there find his “own route up
the steep as the shorter and more adventurous way.” He believed this
“occupied much less time than it would have taken to follow the path—for
what’s the hurry? If a person lost would conclude that after all he is
not lost, ... but the places that have known him, _they_ are lost,—how
much anxiety and danger would vanish. I am not alone if I stand by
myself.”[53]
We followed up the eastern sides of Notch Valley to the head of The
Bellows where the Saw Mill had stood in Thoreau’s day. We regaled
ourselves upon the red raspberries along the pasture, and found the
Deadly Nightshade in bloom amid the bushes. These fields furnish
pasturage for yearlings and calves. The sides of Greylock are clothed
with a heavy forest—“all beshaggled,”—and adorned with “headlong
precipices” and innumerable rivulets. Finally we crossed to the west side
of the valley, in the shadow of the great hill, and entered a ravine
which we christened Æolian Glen.
I have always believed that this Notch Valley was in Thoreau’s thoughts
when he wrote “Rumors from an Æolian Harp.” The name “Bellows-Pipe”
originated with the early settlers for the extreme portion of Notch
Valley, on account of the subtle roaring of the southeast winds,
breathing like a bellows through the narrow vale. The Indians recognized
in the roar of winds the anger of the Great Spirit. The Hoosac Highlands
near the “Forbidden Mountain” were their hunting grounds, to which they
journeyed from their Indian village farther westward near Schaghticoke,
not far from Troy-on-the-Hudson.
Thoreau says of this vale’s “glen-like seclusion overlooking the country
at a great elevation between these two mountain walls,” that it reminded
him of the homesteads of the Huguenots, on the interior hills of Staten
Island.
As Thoreau passed the last house in The Bellows, on his ascent to
Greylock, “Rice” called out and told him that it was still four or five
miles to the summit by the path which he had left, though not more than
two in a straight line from where he was, but that nobody ever went this
way; there was no path and it would be found as “steep as the roof of a
house.” But Thoreau took the short cut, notwithstanding Wilbur’s warning
that he would not reach the summit of Greylock that night. Thoreau says,
however: “I made my way steadily upward in a straight line, through a
dense undergrowth of mountain laurel, until the trees began to have a
scraggy and infernal look, as if contending with frost goblins, and at
length I reached the summit, just as the sun was setting.” After taking
“one fair view of the country before the sun went down,” Thoreau “set out
directly to find water.” It proved to be labor, too. Following down the
path for half a mile he came to a muddy place in the road “where the
water stood in the tracks of the horses which had carried travellers up.”
He drank these dry, one after the other, by lying flat on the earth. He
was not able to fill his dipper, and in a place above dug a well about
two feet deep, using his hands and sharp stones as spade and hoe. It soon
filled with pure cold water, from which he filled his tin cup; and he
says: “The birds, too, came and drank at it.” He then proceeded to the
rude wooden observatory originally erected by Williams College, for the
construction of which Platt—“a friend of mine,” writes Hawthorne in the
_Diary_—hauled the material by ox-team. Platt, the stage-driver, boasted
of the fact that he was the _first_ man to drive a team to the summit
of the then pathless Greylock, led by President Griffin of Williams on
horseback, who directed the building of that first observatory. This
tower is now replaced by a modern iron structure fifty feet high.
[Illustration: =Notch Valley and the Bellows-Pipe, North Adams,
Massachusetts. Mount Greylock towers up on the right, and the Ragged
Mountains on the left hand.=
“_There is a vale which none hath seen,_
_Where foot of man has never been,_
_Such as here lives with toil and strife,_
_An anxious and a sinful life._”
THOREAU.]
Thoreau collected some “dry sticks, and made a fire on some flat stones”
placed on the floor of the observatory for the purpose, and cooked the
rice which he had bought in the village, eating it with a wooden spoon
whittled out for the occasion. He was up at daybreak the next morning,
and he has left a glorious description of sunrise on Greylock, as seen
from the tower in the mists.[54]
The nights are very chill on these summits, even in July. There are now
several log-cabins erected on Greylock for travellers to occupy, with
stables for horses and keepers in attendance. The Catskills can be seen
to the southwestward from this height.
Thoreau set his compass for a lake in the valley to the southwest, and
descended the mountain by his own route, on the opposite side to that of
his ascent.
My companions and I had climbed the slippery glen to where Thoreau
commenced his ascent, and a tiny rivulet slipped over the rocks, which
had formerly been dimpled with miniature pot-holes. Along the moss-grown
banks, above the brook-bed, grew the familiar leaves of the Wild Ginger,
while at the very entrance I discovered the Wild Black Currants (_Ribes
floridum_), similar in taste and appearance to the cultivated species.
The fruit was covered with bristles, and produced a disagreeable odor
like that of the Wild Red Currants on the Dome—reminding one of a skunk.
At the entrance of Æolian Glen, a long log-like slab of rock lay upon
the ground, strangely suggesting a petrified tree. Slowly we descended
the western side of the vale, counting no less than twenty-two flowing
brooklets, and four sun-dried brook-beds between Æolian Brook, at the
head of the Bellows, and Walden Farm below. As we approached the meadows
where the Wilbur Farm buildings formerly stood, we found a half-dozen
spikes of the Ragged Orchis (_Habenaria lacera_) amid the damp grasses.
This species I collected also later in the pastures of Rattlesnake Swamp,
and found the pure White-Fringed Orchis along the roadside of Ladd Brook
Valley in Pownal.
We now arrived at Crystal Spring, where we freshened up before entering
the City in the “hollow vale” three miles below.
The formation of the Notch Valley was brought about by one of the
successive terminal moraines flowing from the glaciated slopes of the
ice-mountains farther northwestward, in the Adirondack region; while
later the glaciated shoulders of Greylock’s Brotherhood slowly melted,
eroding the slopes with small ravines in which the numerous rivulets
flow to-day. The continental ice rivers from the higher glaciers
northward apparently culminated in tremendous and successive cascades
above Notch Valley, eroding the deep-cut gorges between Greylock and
Ragged Mountains. The general directions of these currents, below these
waterfalls, were various, finally leading down to the ancient Hoosac
Lake, and flowing with it through the natural dam, northwestwardly, to
the Hudson Valley, and thence to the sea. According to Professor T.
Nelson Dale, an ancient lake six hundred feet deep existed in the Hoosac
Valley ten thousand years ago. Perhaps ten times ten thousand years ago,
a greater glacial sea overflowed the Hoosac Tunnel Mountains, leaving the
bald summit of Greylock alone towering above the waves. As the terminal
moraines of the great ice-sheet slowly receded, the various cascades
formed pot-hole erosions, in their descent on the Canaan Hills, above the
Connecticut Valley. Deerfield Arch was similarly formed by the force and
chemical action of the eroding ice rivers, which flowed from glaciers,
and wore through the wall of rock spanning the Deerfield Valley.
Hawthorne compared this arch to “the arched entrance of an ancient
church, which it might be taken to be, though considerably dilapidated
and weather-worn.... It was really like the archway of an enchanted
palace, all of which has vanished except the entrance—now opens only into
nothingness and empty space.... This curiosity occurs in a wild part of
the river’s course, and in a solitude of mountains.”[55] Dr. Wolfe says:
“The summit of the arch and the water-worn pillars upon either side
display ‘pot-holes’ and other evidences of erosion, and in the bed of the
current lie fragments of similar attrite rocks which seem to indicate
that at some period a series of arches spanned the entire space from
mountain to mountain.”[56]
Other erosions known as the “Twin Cascades” are found on the eastern
slopes of Hoosac Mountain, above the eastern portal of the Tunnel, formed
ages before the Hoosac Lake rippled in the “hollow vale” at North Adams.
The Natural Bridge of the Mayunsook Valley is one of the greatest natural
formations in Berkshire Highlands, and was also caused by erosions of the
ice-currents ages ago.
On August 16th, this season, a great landslide occurred on the southern
brow of Greylock, caused by a cloudburst. It began within a few feet of
the summit, widening as the loosened soil slipped off the bed-rock of
the mountain. It swept down with velocity, becoming several rods wide as
it reached the valley. It covered Gould Farm with earth, rocks, and logs
gathered in its descent to South Adams, and the machinery in the mills in
the village, three miles away, was crippled by the sand and water pouring
in about the engines; the streets became canals, and boats were necessary
to move about in. However, no lives were lost. The formation rock, from
the base of Greylock, is laid bare in the path of this landslide. Six
to ten terraced ridges, like stone stairs, are revealed in the ascent
for some distance, indicating many ages in geological history. Here is
evidence of those slowly receding seas and lakes as they drained from the
summits down, stair by stair to the winding Ashuilticook River of to-day.
XVIII
The Natural Bridge of Mayunsook Valley, Northern Berkshire
There’s no music like a little river’s. It plays the same tune
(and that’s the favorite) over and over again, and yet does not
weary of it like men fiddlers.—ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, _Prince
Otto_.
A narrow vale winds away northeastward from the city of North Adams to
Stamford, Vermont. A short walk from the terminus of the car line in
The Beaver leads to the junction of Hudson Brook with the Mayunsook
River. The Mayunsook is often called the Little Deerfield. It is the
North Branch of the Hoosac, rising near Stamford Ponds, and draining the
southern and western slopes above Stamford Hollow. The Greater Deerfield
River rises also near these lakes, and drains the same mountains from
their northern and eastern slopes, flowing around through Readsboro to
Zoar, where travellers meet it as they pass out of the eastern portal of
the Hoosac Tunnel into the Deerfield Valley. Thus, from their mysterious
sources our turbulent rivers and mountain streams bring restful, cooling
news from out the higher lands, where scarce the foot of man has been.
On August 7th I explored about Natural Bridge on Hudson Brook. I wore
hob-nailed boots, and made a long day’s excursion. Hawthorne knew and
loved this wonderful natural feature of northern Berkshire, and here
gathered many fancies, which he has woven into his tales. The chasm of
Hudson Brook is described as the “Cave” in his _Notes_. His description
of the ravine is the finest ever written.
Hudson Brook, tradition tells us, took its name from the hunter Hudson,
who, one twilight, dragging homeward a deer he had killed, lost it in
this chasm. He narrowly escaped following it himself.
The region is entered either by walking up the bed of the stream itself,
or following around the road above Marble Quarry, just east of the
chasm. The former is the more direct, but the latter a longer and safer
way. In this instance, I followed the travelled highway. I proceeded up
the stream where the erosions begin, and readily descended the ravine,
following its course downward until I came to a beautiful marble basin
or pot-hole formation, which very few see, since it is hidden under the
wooden foot-bridge above the natural bridge of rock. Logs and immense
rocks barred my way, and I was forced through dark fissures in my ascent
to the sunlight.
The pot-hole was evidently the same pool of which Hawthorne wrote: “As
the deepest pool occurs in the most uneven part of the chasm, where the
hollows in the sides of the crag are deepest, so that each hollow is
almost a cave by itself, I determined to wade through it ... there was an
accumulation of soft stuff on the bottom, so that the water did not look
more than knee-deep; but, finding that my feet sunk in it, I took off
my trousers and waded through.”[57] He visited this stream often: “The
cave makes a fresh impression upon me every time I visit it,—so deep,
so irregular, so gloomy, so stern,—part of its walls the pure white of
marble,—others covered with a gray decomposition and with spots of moss,
and with brake growing where there is a handful of earth.”[58]
Hawthorne believed firmly that “a complete arch of marble, forming a
natural bridge over the top of the cave,” must have covered the whole
chasm of the stream at an unknown period. The pot-hole, I am most
certain, has been forded by few lads, and it is hardly probable that any
other poet or prose master ever disrobed and bathed in its waters as
Hawthorne did in 1838. The basin is from six to eight feet deep, with
a beautifully rounded, highly polished brim. I christened this bowl
“Hawthorne’s Bath-Tub,” and, unable to wade it, climbed out of the “Cave”
to the light above. I, however, descended again to see the northern
portal of the arch below the Bath-Tub. I was interested in the names
painted high and low upon the marble rocks. Some visitors had evidently
tried to place their initials as high as possible, while others more
modest sought to write theirs as low, and in more obscure places. I
regretted that I had not brought a pot of red paint and a brush to daub
my own title there, with the ambitious crowd.
The stream, as it approaches the arch of the Bridge, is deep and of a
dark green color. The chasm, from the top of the ledge, is about sixty
feet deep, and the ravine three hundred feet in length. Geologists say
that the ravine was formerly spanned by two ledges of rock, one of which
is now in ruins. The piles of rocks in the chasm south of the southern
portal of the arch are dazzling white, seen in the noonday sunshine. The
fall of water, in its descent through the ravine, is about forty feet to
the three hundred feet, so that the eddies play and whirl rapidly through
the irregular bed. A wooden tile, or raceway, was hung high over the
chasm, across a leaning crag of the original ledge,—conveying water power
thereby to mills below. This old structure leaked, and as I descended the
banks below, I saw some of the most gorgeous miniature rainbows spanning
the depths, as the sunshine fell upon the mist near the arch.
A lad once made a wager with his comrades that he could cross over the
ravine upon this wooden tile. The old weather-worn log was slippery with
mould and mosses. In making his daring and perilous trip, the youth lost
his footing, and fell headlong into the heart of the chasm. Following the
fall, a terrific thunderstorm passed through the Hoosac, and night closed
over the chasm. The next morning the boy’s lifeless body was recovered.
The wooden structure is now replaced with an iron tiling.
I passed on down the path on the west bank, until I reached an immense
marble boulder, which was draped with dainty ferns and mosses. Little
rivulets flowed from its sides, and climbing around to its southern brow,
I was delighted to find many luxuriant plants of Walking Ferns—this
making the fifth excursion in succession in which I had found this rare
plant.
I entered the ravine below the boulder, and picked my way up the chasm
to the southern portal of the arch, where I became wet through from the
mist above, as I ventured to look through the cave. Returning, I found
a path up the east bank leading to Marble Quarry and the mill below,
where grave-stones, door-stones, and various ornaments are manufactured.
The most useful piece of work ever turned out here was, in my mind, the
Williams College sun-dial tablet, which Hawthorne observed in 1838 as
being as large as the top of a hogshead.[59] I have later discovered
that this dial was placed near that old Astronomical Observatory on
Consumption Hill, near the present College Library,—the first building of
its kind erected in the United States, for the study of the worlds above,
by Professor Albert Hopkins, in 1838. The bronze sun-dial was supported
upon the marble table which Hawthorne saw at the quarry. Around it was
carved in the soft marble the now dim inscription:
“HOW IS IT THAT YE DO NOT DISCERN THIS TIME.”
This dial is now among the relics in the College Museum.
The overhanging crag, near the southern side of the arch, will in
another half-century or more tumble also into the ravine. One large pine
tree and many bushes, growing on this leaning tower, are plying their
roots deeply in the marble fissures, and are slowly splitting the rock
asunder. I have designated this pile Captain Skipper’s Monument, in
memory of him who recorded the last evidences of the Beaver Dam across
this stream. Tradition says that the beavers labored centuries before
the white man arrived in the Mayunsook Valley, building better than they
realized, since they erected a dam which stopped the rippling flow of
Hudson Brook. Originally, this stream flowed nearer the surface of the
Natural Bridge. It is believed by some that the dam clogged the driftwood
from the domes, and thus set the waters back. The force of the eddies,
combined with the chemical action of the waters whirling among the logs
and rocks, eroded dimples in the soft marble, until they wore the present
archway through.
[Illustration: =The Marble Arch of the Natural Bridge, North Adams,
Massachusetts.=
“Our own country furnishes antiquities as ancient and durable, and as
useful, as any; rocks at least as well covered with lichens, and a soil
which, if it is virgin, is but virgin mould, the very dust of nature.
What if we cannot read Rome, or Greece, Etruria, or Carthage, or Egypt,
or Babylon, on these; are our cliffs bare?”—THOREAU.]
I followed down the bed of the stream, stepping from rock to rock easily,
until I reached the path far below the Marble Quarry, and entered The
Beaver, a little village where every one works like the small animals
for which it is named. I was now near the junction of Hudson Brook and
the Mayunsook; and not wishing to return to the City until sunset, I
scrambled up the slippery sides of the hemlock hills above the little
river. With the echo of the cavern’s tumultuous roar still in my ears,
I now heard, in pleasant contrast, the distant gentle murmur of that
flowing stream. When I departed from the vales of these talking streams,
I carried with me back to the busy world the remembrance of the voicing
fantasies of their songs of wilderness and solitude.
XIX
Orange Mountains, and Salt Meadows, New Jersey
The weapons with which we have gained our most important
victories, which should be handed down as heirlooms from father
to son, are not the sword and the lance, but the bush-whack,
the turf-cutter, the spade, and the bog-hoe, rusted with the
blood of many a meadow, and begrimed with the dust of many a
hard fought field.—THOREAU, _Excursions_.
August 12th I started for the Orange Mountains, in search of Cardinal
Flowers, and various other blossoms, which I hoped to find about Eagle
Rock. Arriving at those ragged cliffs, overhanging the brow of the
mountains above West Orange, I climbed up the winding stone stairs and
entered the park. The woods were strewn with small yellow flowers and
ferns.
The view from the Rock is vast, as the eye sweeps off over the Great Salt
Meadows beyond Newark, to Brooklyn Heights. On a clear day, the tall
buildings of New York and the piers of Brooklyn Bridge are discernible.
The Goddess of Liberty in the Bay also stands out clearly, and the
slow-moving sails and funnels of outgoing steamers are visible. Most
people seek Eagle Rock for this view alone.
Farther back in the woods, in May and June, the Pinxter-Flower, False
Solomon’s Seal, yellow and blue violets, bluets, and anemone everywhere
decorate the rocky soil. Numerous tall weeds towered coarsely along the
mountainsides, to-day flaunting their disagreeable perfume ever before me.
I followed southwesterly, along the summit for a mile or more, to Crystal
Lake, passing the park called “Wildmont,” to the right of which stands
Cobblestone Cottage. The building appears very ancient.
All the vast solitudes of the parks of Orange Mountains are locked
within gates, and the entrance labelled, “_No Trespassing, Under Penalty
of the Law_.” Law is a specific designation for a certain kind of a
broad-headed, bow-legged quadruped—a thoroughbred species not mentioned
in the scientific annals of the Hoosac Highlands. After passing the
lake, I followed up the swamp toward the distant walls of Wildmont, very
desirous of trespassing and seeing the Wild Law in his cage. Soon I found
a place where the stones were tumbled out, and where, by lifting a barbed
wire, I could crawl through. So happily and leisurely I began to trespass
about the woods. I found luxuriant colonies of the Maiden-Hair Fern,
tall spirit-like spikes of feathery flowers, and club-like spikes of
fringed-purple weeds not seen in the Hoosac Valley. They were so common
that I did not gather any, so I never determined their title. In the
deeper pools grew a few plants of the Skunk Cabbage. The low bushes and
plants were overgrown and coarse in the extreme, amid the dense shades
of chestnut and elm trees. The forest, apparently, was still in its
primeval state.
As I approached the cottage of Wildmont, I ran upon an old cellar hole,
where a building had once stood. The ruins were now prettily covered
with myrtle and ivy. From this site, between the parting boughs, I
caught glints of a sea of blues in the valley of the Oranges, which was
overflowing with glistening house-tops and church-spires. Here I turned
about and found a great colony of Indian Pipes.
As I turned from the shades of Wildmont, I walked toward Crystal Lake,
along a dry brook bed. Here, indeed, I found a Cardinal show; over
a hundred spikes of that brilliant flower danced before my eyes and
lighted up the glooms. I had never before seen such flowers as these.
The Cardinal-Flower (_Lobelia cardinalis_) is not frequent in Hoosac
Valley—at least I have never collected it there. John Burroughs writes
of it: “It is not so much something colored as it is color itself.”[60]
I gathered many spikes of this flaring colored flower, and passed out
to the shore of the lake; children, with their sailboats, ran teasingly
after me, until I escaped to a quiet retreat where ice-cream was served.
The waiter and the children alike were strangely unfamiliar with this
flower, growing so close to their homes.
I passed out over the rocky slopes northward, where I ate huckleberries
to my heart’s content. The ghost-like Feathery Plumes, and common
Purple Clubs of this region towered everywhere among the woods; and
low beautiful plants of the Yellow Gerardia were in full bloom. As I
rounded the slope, below the Rock, I collected a fine specimen of the
gorgeously colored Orange Butterfly-Weed, or Pleurisy-Root (_Asclepias
tuberosa_), of the Milkweed Family. In the swamp farther south on the
Orange Mountains, I have formerly collected the Swamp Milkweed flowers,
which are similar to Butterfly-Weed, save that they are of a delicate
rose-purple color. Our common species northward is the Purple-Flowered
Silkweed. It grows along our roadside walls and river banks, and its
tender leaves are used as greens, proving very delicious food.
I sat some time on the hillside under Eagle Rock, recalling the various
flowers collected along the Northfield Road the year past. Llewellyn and
Hutton Parks, along these summits, are always fragrant with blossoms in
May and June. I once spent a holiday in Pleasant Valley beyond St. Cloud,
in May and June, collecting among other flowers the beautiful Tulip-Tree
blossoms (_Liriodendron Tulipifera_), which some lads graciously gathered
for me.
The swamps and woods about this vale produce about the same species of
flowers and trees as the hills of Mosholu and Lowerre above New York
City—marsh marigolds, violets, anemones, dogwoods, and glowing apple
orchards that one does not soon forget. One rare flower, however, graces
the Orlando Williams Swamp in Pleasant Valley that I find nowhere else.
It is the Painted-Cup (_Castilleja coccinea_) of the Figwort Family. It
is very similar to the Scarlet Painted-Cup that Bryant wrote about as
growing on the prairies.[61]
[Illustration: =The Star-blossoms of the Grass of Parnassus= (_Parnassia
Caroliniana_), =and the Ladies’ Tresses.=]
Frequently country folk call this flower Indian’s Paint-Brush; it
somewhat resembles a clover tuft daubed with vermilion. The species found
in New Jersey and Staten Island are the same. Thoreau found the scarlet
tufts of the Painted-Cup “very common in the meadows” on Staten Island
in 1843.[62] The Alpine Painted-Cups of the White and Green Mountains
are somewhat different from the species found southward and westward. A
friend collected flowers of these strange plants near Woodmont in the
vicinity of New Haven, and about Marbledale, Connecticut. These are
typical little Figworts.
The lobelias, gerardias, milkweeds, butter-and-eggs, Leopard’s-Bane
(_Arnica acaulis_), and field daisies are common in the pastures and
woods of St. Cloud and Pleasant Valley. In the distant swamps the Sweet
Bay Magnolia (_Magnolia Virginiana_) and the Tulip Tree are the only two
common northern species of the Magnolia Family. A single tulip tree is
found in the Hoosac Valley, at North Pownal. Tulip trees are abundant in
New Haven, Connecticut, and in Bronx Park, and also on Orange Mountains.
They thrive especially westward and southward, where they become
beautiful flowering trees—often one hundred and forty feet high.
As I came down the Northfield Road from St. Cloud, in June, 1896, I
found the pastures full of blooming briar-roses, and the meadows waving
with white daisies and golden arnica. The latter flower is replaced in
the meadows of the Hoosac Highlands by great patches of the Devil’s
Paint-Brush or Orange Hawkweed (_Hieracium aurantiacum_), an emigrant
weed from Europe, which is very pretty and fragrant. The Purple Gerardia
(_Gerardia purpurea_), the Blue Lobelias (_Lobelia syphilitica_), and
_Lobelia spicata_ grow abundantly in Pownal-on-the-Hoosac in June.
As I passed homeward through the Salt Meadows, beyond Newark, on the new
Plank Road to Desbrosses Ferry, I began to observe the large pink-purple
blossoms of the Swamp Rose-Mallow (_Hibiscus Moscheutos_) and the
Marsh-Mallow (_Althæa officinalis_), whose roots contain a mucilaginous
substance, and which are closely allied to our cultivated hollyhocks. I
soon neared an open ditch by the road, filled with blossoming Arrow-Head
(_Sagittaria latifolia_) and Pickerel-Weed (_Pontederia cordata_). The
former produces beautiful waxen white flowers, and the latter, blue
spikes of ragged blossoms. Not far from this mud-hole on the dry, sandy
roadside, I gathered the rank-scented Jimson-Weed or Thorn-Apple (_Datura
Stramonium_), a poisonous emigrant weed from Asia, whose Arabic name was
_Tatorah_. It is common everywhere about these regions in waste ground,
as well as along Kingsbridge Road and Old East Chester near the City. I
have also observed it near the poor-house in New Haven, but never in the
Hoosac Valley region.
The Salt Meadows of New Jersey, during August and September, are rolling
swales of tall sedges and cat-tail grasses. Later in the season, when the
golden-rod and purple asters are frozen and brown, and thrown in heaps
upon the ground by the autumn winds, one may see great flocks of geese,
and the comical purple grackle—the crow blackbird—flying southward over
these desolate lands. A deep, weird solitude surrounds these unfathomable
swamps. The foot of man and his bog-hoe as yet have never penetrated
their regions, although within hearing of Old Trinity’s chimes.
In the Hoosac Valley autumn is a season of glory. Late August produces
the gorgeous colored tiger lilies. The swampy meadows in September
are brightened with the delicate greenish-white stars of the Grass-of
Parnassus (_Parnassia Caroliniana_), first found on that ancient Mount
Parnassus in Greece, and described and named by Dioscorides in Christ’s
day. Innumerable asters and golden-rod brighten the roadside hedges.
In the open clearings of bushy pastures grows the Woolly Moonshine—the
“everlasting” of which Thoreau wrote. It is sometimes called Cud-Weed,
or Balsam-Weed (_Gnaphalium decurrens_). The Pearly-Everlasting or
None-so-Pretty (_Anaphalis margaritacea_) is peculiarly fragrant and
beautiful, banked in among the late golden-rods, and the crimson and
chrome-colored autumn leaves of sumach and blackberry briars against the
dark green pines. I have found these flowers unfolding amid the snows as
late as December. Late spikes of Orchids, the Ladies’ Tresses of genus
_Gyrostachys_, the Bitter-Buttons or Tansy-Weed (_Tanacetum vulgare_),
numerous thistles (_Carduus_), the velvety leaves of St. Peter’s Mullen
(_Verbascum Thapsus_), Wormwood (_Artemisia Absinthium_) grow along
the roadsides over Mount Œta, while Thimble-Berry blossoms and the
Bluebells-of-New-England fill in the waste places of fences and dug-away
ledges.
When the cooler days of October come, we may look for that blue flower
of heaven, the Fringed Gentian (_Gentiana crinita_), along the roadsides
near the swamps of Etchowog, modestly and patiently waiting for the
autumnal skies of blue:
Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue—blue—as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean well.[63]
So come and fade alike the rarest flowers and the commonest weeds among
the Highlands of the Hoosac, the valley of peaceful waters.
It is in the deepest and most secluded swamps that the shy orchid blooms,
far beyond the realm of lawn or garden. Few indeed realize what a world
of beauty and order lies sleeping unsought and unseen in the mossy
recesses of our mountains,—a wonderland of discovery to any one who
persistently, though reverently, seeks to lure from Nature the secrets of
her deep retreats.
[Illustration: =The Hoosac River, Pownal, Vermont.=
“_Flow on, fair Hoosac, with your gentle song,_
_Flow peacefully through all the centuries long;_
_To that unbounded sea, Eternity!_
_That God decrees alike for Man and Thee._”
G. G. N.]
APPENDIX
NEW ENGLAND ORCHIDS
Nature, in fact that parent of all things, has produced no animated being
for the purpose solely of eating; she has willed that it should be born
to satisfy the wants of others, and in its very vitals has implanted
medicaments conducive to health.... Cato has recommended that flowers for
making chaplets should be cultivated in the gardens: varieties remarkable
for delicacy, which it is quite impossible to express, inasmuch as no
individual can find such faculties for describing them as Nature does,
for bestowing on them their numerous tints. Nature, who here in especial
shows herself in a sportive mood, takes a delight in the prolific display
of her varied productions. The other plants she has produced for our
uses and our nutriment, and to them accordingly she has granted years,
and even ages, of duration; but as for the flowers and their perfumes,
she has given them birth for but a day—a mighty lesson to man, we see,
to teach him that that which in its career is most beauteous and most
attractive to the eye is the very first to fade and die.
Even the limner’s art possesses no resources for reproducing colors of
the flowers in all their varied tints and combinations, whether we view
them in groups alternately blending their hues or whether arranged in
festoons, each variety by itself.—PLINY, _Natural History_ (23-79 A.D.).
Orchidaceæ
_Orchid Family_
[In compiling the appendix of New England Orchids, the author has
followed the order of classification and nomenclature adopted by Messrs.
Britton and Brown in the _Illustrated Flora_ of Northeastern North
America, 1896, without doubt the highest and most systematic arrangement
according to the progress of evolution and the advancement of the science
of botany in North America.]
ORCHIDACEÆ, Lindley, _Natural System_, 2d ed., p. 336. 1836.
=Perennial= plants arising from bulbs, corms, fibrous, or tuberous roots.
=Stems= or =scapes= 2 inches to 3-4 feet high. =Leaves= parallel-veined,
sheathing, and plicate, sometimes reduced to scales. =Flowers= perfect
or irregular, solitary or in a spiked raceme, usually subtended by a
leafy bract. =Perianth= consists of 6 segments. The =calyx=, or outer
whorl, consisting of 3 parts (sepals); the =corolla=, or inner whorl,
consisting of 3 parts (petals). The third petal is designated =labellum=
(lip), or nectary, and is in orchids the most beautiful part, assuming
grotesque shapes ornamented with spurs and fringes. The =stamens= and
=pistils= are variously united with the style, forming an unsymmetrical
column. =Anther=, 1, or in _Cypripedium_ 2; 2-celled. =Pollen= in 2-8
pear-shaped, usually stalked masses (_pollinia_), united by elastic
threads, the masses waxy or powdery, attached at the base to a viscid
disk (gland). =Stigma=, a viscid surface, facing the labellum beneath
the rostellum, or in a cavity between the anther-sacs (_clinandrium_).
=Seed-capsule= (ovary) inferior, long and twisted, 3-angled, 1-celled.
=Ovules= minute, spindle-shaped, and numerous; =embryo= fleshy. The
colors of orchids are various and beautiful; their fragrance heavy and
exquisite in several species. Orchids were known and designated by
Linnæus in 1753 as _Gynandrous_, meaning “stamens and pistils united to
the column.” There are about 410 genera and from 6,000 to 10,000 species,
widely distributed throughout the damp and wooded regions of the world.
More abundant in the humid atmosphere of the tropics, where many species
are air-plants or epiphytes. The orchids of the temperate and sub-arctic
regions are terrestrial, drawing their nourishment from the earth.
North American Orchids, North of Mexico 150-160
New England Orchids 48-56
Hoosac Valley Orchids 40-42
Genera of Orchid Family in New England
GENERA XV. SPECIES 56.
I. _Cypripedium_ Linnæus, 1753—6 species.
II. _Orchis_ Linnæus, 1753—2 species.
III. _Habenaria_ Willdenow, 1805—18 species.
IV. _Pogonia_ Jussieu, 1789—4 species.
V. _Arethusa_ Linnæus, 1753—1 species.
VI. _Gyrostachys_ Persoon, 1807—6 species.
(_Spiranthes_ Richard, 1818.[64])
VII. _Listera_ R. Brown, 1813—3 species.
VIII. _Peramium_ Salisbury, 1812—4 species.
(_Goodyera_ R. Brown, 1813.[64])
IX. _Achroanthes_ Rafinesque, 1808—2 species.
(_Microstylis_ Nuttall, 1818.[64])
X. _Leptorchis_ Thouars, 1808—2 species.
(_Liparis_ Richard, 1818.[64])
XI. _Calypso_ Salisbury, 1807—1 species.[65]
XII. _Corallorhiza_ R. Brown, 1813—4 species.
XIII. _Tipularia_ Nuttall, 1818—1 species.[65]
XIV. _Limodorum_ Linnæus, 1753—1 species.
(_Calopogon_ R. Brown, 1813.[64])
XV. _Aplectrum_ Nuttall, 1818—1 species.[65]
I
Cypripedium
Linnæus, 1753
LADY’S SLIPPER—MOCCASIN-FLOWER
English—Lady’s Slipper.
Latin—Calceolus D. Mariæ, or Marianus.
German—Frauenschuh, or Marienschuh.
French—Sabot de la Vierge, or Soulier de Notre Dame.
Italian—Pontoffala, or scarpa della Madonna.
Algonquin Indian—Mawcahsun, or Makkasin-Flower.
North American—Indian Moccasin-Flower.
The generic name, _Cypripedium_, comes from the Greek, referring to
Κύπρις, a former name of Venus, the Divine Mother of the Romans before
Christ, and πόδιον, signifying sock, or slipper.
=Glandular= pubescent plants. =Anthers=, 2. =Labellum= shoe-shaped, or
conical. =Sepals= and =petals= similar in texture; lower sepals wholly or
imperfectly united in all species save _C. arietinum_ R. Brown. =Stem=, 6
inches to 3 feet high. =Flowers=, 1-4 in the Atlantic region and 1-12 in
the Pacific region; pendulous, alternating in a bracted raceme. =Pollen=
granulose, without caudicle or glands. =Fragrance= heavy, aromatic, or
oily save in two exquisitely sweet species, _C. parviflorum_ Salisbury,
of the Atlantic region, and _C. Montanum_ Douglas, of the Pacific
slope. =Leaves=, 2-several, plicate, light green, somewhat resembling
_Hellebore_ foliage, with which plants the _Cypripediums_ were early
confused by the ancient herbalists. =Roots= fleshy, fibrous, with
spicy, oily, or musk-like odor, used as a nervine. =Seed-capsule= long,
three-angled; ovules numerous, minute, resembling saw-dust. Seedlings
frequent in many stations. About 50 species for the world.
_Continental Range_—Throughout the _conifer_ wooded and bogland regions
from Alaska southward to Mexico. May-July.
North American species 13
New England species 6
Hoosac Valley species 5
New England species:
1. _C. arietinum_ R. Brown, 1813.
2. _C. reginæ_ Walter, 1788.
(_C. spectabile_ Salisbury, 1791.)
3. _C. candidum_ Willdenow, 1805.
4. _C. hirsutum_ Miller, 1768.
(_C. pubescens_ Willdenow, 1805.)
5. _C. parviflorum_ Salisbury, 1791.
6. _C. acaule_ Aiton, 1789.
[Illustration: =The Fragrant White Moccasin-Flower.= (_Cypripedium
Montanum._)
This species is a native of the Rocky Mountain region, and is closely
related to our eastern Fragrant Yellow Lady’s Slipper (_Cypripedium
parviflorum_): these two Cypripediums being the only really fragrant
species on the continent.]
1.—CYPRIPEDIUM ARIETINUM R. Brown, 1813
RAM’S-HEAD LADY’S SLIPPER—RAM’S-HEAD MOCCASIN-FLOWER
The specific name, _arietinum_, refers to the conical labellum resembling
a ram’s head.
Small _conifer_ bogland or damp woodland orchid, with fibrous roots.
Rare. May 9th-August 1st.
=Flowers=, one, terminal, mottled dull purple and white. =Labellum=
conical, ½-⅔ inch, prolonged at the apex into a reflexed spur. =Sepals=
all free. =Petals= narrow, similar in color, and assuming the place of
horns to the ram’s-head-shaped flower. =Stem= leafy, 6-12 inches high.
=Leaves=, 3-4, dark apple-green; 2-4 inches wide, smooth, without hairs.
=Seed-capsule= prominently ridged.
_Continental Range_—From Quebec, Ontario southward to North Haven,
Connecticut, and Mt. Toby, Massachusetts; westward to Minnesota, the
Great Lake region being the centre of distribution. Limited between the
40th-50th parallels.
_New England Range_—Maine, rather abundant; New Hampshire, rare; Vermont,
abundant; Massachusetts, rare; Connecticut, very rare.
2.—CYPRIPEDIUM REGINÆ Walter, 1788
(_Cypripedium spectabile_ Salisbury, 1791)
WHITE-PETALED, OR SHOWY LADY’S SLIPPER—QUEEN OF THE MOCCASIN-FLOWERS
The specific name, _reginæ_, refers to the queenly appearance of the
white-petaled flowers.
Large bogland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots. Frequent. June 15th-July
4th.
=Flowers=, 1-4 terminal, large, showy, white, tinged with deep pink
or wine; the most beautiful species among our native _Cypripediums_.
=Labellum= shoe-shaped, inflated, drooping margins of the orifice
inflected, crest deeply tinged with pink-purple; interior downy,
ornamented with lines of deeper purple. Rarely pure white flowers occur.
=Sepals= and =petals= similar, pure white; 2 lower sepals wholly united;
side petals narrower than sepals. =Stem=, 1-3 feet high. =Leaves=,
5-7, alternating to top of stem; 3-7 inches long, clasping, 1-4 inches
wide; 10-13 plaits; strongly pubescent, produces poisonous effect to
susceptible people similar to that caused by _Rhus_.
_Continental Range_—From Nova Scotia southward to the higher mountains of
North Carolina, and Huntsville, Alabama; westward to Minnesota, Walhalla
Mountains, North Dakota, and the Barrens of Kentucky.
_New England Range_—Maine, frequent; New Hampshire, frequent; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, common; Rhode Island, no stations reported;
Connecticut, frequent.
[Illustration: =The Showy Moccasin-Flower.= (_Cypripedium reginæ._)
This is the most gorgeous _Cypripedium_ in the world, and without doubt
one of the most ancient types of the genus. The stigma is distinctly
three-lobed. The plate shows the waxy texture of the white sepals and
petals and the wine-colored crest of the shoe-shaped labellum, as well as
the highly decorated interior.]
3.—CYPRIPEDIUM CANDIDUM Willdenow, 1805[66]
SMALL WHITE LADY’S SLIPPER—THE PRAIRIE MOCCASIN-FLOWER
The specific name, _candidum_, refers to the white labellum of this
species.
Small, damp swamp-land orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots. Rare. May
11th-June 29th.
=Flowers= small, solitary, and terminal. =Labellum= shoe-shaped, white,
striped with purple interiorly; about 1 inch long; orifice small, with
edges inflected. =Sepals= and =petals= lanceolate, greenish-brown and
purple; lower sepals imperfectly united. =Stem= leafy, 6-12 inches high,
pubescent. =Leaves=, 3-4, sheathing, erect, crowded, acute, 3-5 inches
long, ⅔-1½ inches wide, several scales below, 7-9 nerved.
_Continental Range_—From Connecticut, Pennsylvania westward to Indiana,
North Dakota, Columbia Plains, on the Canadian shore of St. Clair River,
to the Barrens of northern Kentucky, and Fort Hill, California, which
station appears doubtful; more central distribution being from central
New York to North Dakota.
_New England Range_—Recently reported for Connecticut by Mr. A. W.
Driggs, of East Hartford.
4.—CYPRIPEDIUM HIRSUTUM Miller, 1768
(_Cypripedium pubescens_ Willdenow, 1805)
LARGE YELLOW LADY’S SLIPPER—DOWNY YELLOW MOCCASIN-FLOWER
The specific name, _hirsutum_, refers to the whole plant being hirsute,
or clothed with hairs.
Large bogland or damp mountainside orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots. May
19th-June 15th.
=Flowers= dull chrome yellow, 1-3, terminal, shoe-shaped, 1-2½ inches
long. =Labellum= shoe-shaped, inflated, convex above, chrome yellow,
edges of orifice inflected, lined with downy hairs and dotted lines of
carmine. =Sepals= and =petals= graceful, petals very much twisted; lower
sepals imperfectly united; siskin-green and brown-purple. =Stem= leafy to
top, 1-2½ high, pubescent. =Leaves=, usually 5, broadly ovate, 3-5 inches
long, 1½-3 inches wide; 7-9 nerved; plicate and hirsute, said to cause
poisonous irritation similar to _Rhus_. =Roots= used as a nervine.[67]
_Continental Range_—From the wooded country of the sub-arctic lands
in latitude 54°-64° North, southward throughout Canada, New England,
to Alabama; westward to North Dakota, Colorado, slightly beyond the
Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountain region.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
frequent; Massachusetts, abundant; Rhode Island, rare; Connecticut, rare.
5.—CYPRIPEDIUM PARVIFLORUM Salisbury, 1791
SMALL YELLOW LADY’S SLIPPER—FRAGRANT YELLOW MOCCASIN-FLOWER
The specific name, _parviflorum_, refers to the small flower of this
species.
Small bogland or damp hillside orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots. May
19th-July 4th.
Flowers small, yellow, solitary, and terminal. Often intergrades with
larger yellow species—(_C. hirsutum_); fragrant, the only _Cypripedium_
in the Atlantic region especially so. Labellum small, ½-1½ inch long,
shoe-shaped, drooping lemon-yellow, lined with downy hairs and dotted
lines of carmine. Sepals and petals brownish-purple, similar in texture;
sepals 2 inches long, graceful, twisted, lower ones imperfectly united;
petals glossy and twisting exceedingly. Stem leafy, slender, pubescent,
1-2 feet high. Leaves lanceolate, 3-5 inches long and 1-2¼ inches wide,
pubescent, 7-9 nerved; not so villose as _C. hirsutum_ Miller. Said to
produce poisonous effect similar to _Rhus_.
_Continental Range_—In company with other species of New England
_Cypripedium_; from Newfoundland, British Columbia, southward to Georgia;
westward to the sub-humid regions of Kansas, extending slightly over the
Continental Divide in Rocky Mountain region. Ascends 4000 feet altitude
in Virginia.
_New England Range_—Maine, frequent; New Hampshire, infrequent;
Vermont, frequent; Massachusetts, frequent; Rhode Island, not reported;
Connecticut, rather rare.
6.—CYPRIPEDIUM ACAULE Aiton, 1789
TWO-LEAVED LADY’S SLIPPER—STEMLESS PINK MOCCASIN-FLOWER
The specific name, _acaule_, refers to the lowly and humble
(acaulescent), growth of the species, since the flower is stemless,
arising from a short or subterranean stem.
Sphagnous bogland, _conifer_ or mixed woodland orchid with fleshy-fibrous
roots. May 19th-June 20th.
Flowers large, pink-purple, solitary, terminal, stemless. Labellum
shoe-shaped, 2-2½ inches long, bi-lobed, pendulous, with closed fissure
down its whole length, edges inflected, downy interiorly; pink-purple
with darker veining of purple. (Rarely pure white flowers occur, with
chrome yellow sepals and petals.) Sepals and petals brown-purple and
green, shorter than labellum; two lower sepals wholly united. =Stem=
very short, obscured by the basal leaves. =Scape= naked, 8-18 inches
high, single-flowered, terminal. Few instances where two flowers or buds
in embryo have occurred. =Leaves= 2, sheathing the base of peduncle,
oblanceolate 3-5 nerved, hirsute and thickened; 6-8 inches long, 2-3
inches wide, resembling the leaves of _Orchis spectabilis_ Linnæus.
_Continental Range_—From Newfoundland, and Fort Franklin, in latitude
54°-64° North; southward to Lookout Mountain, Mentone, and Cullman,
Alabama; westward to northern Indiana, Minnesota, and Kentucky.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
abundant; Massachusetts, abundant; Rhode Island, common; Connecticut,
common.
[Illustration: =The Pink Moccasin-Flower—The Stemless Lady’s-Slipper.=
(_Cypripedium acaule._)
Showing the structure of the pendulous and bi-lobed labellum, and the
processes of the sepals and petals. The lower sepals are wholly united
in this species, and less grace or undulation appears than in the Yellow
Cypripediums.]
II
Orchis
Linnæus, 1753
SHOWY ORCHIS
The generic name, _Orchis_, refers to ὄρχις, the son of a rural deity of
classical mythology, in whose memory these flowers were designated.
Plants with biennial roots. =Anther= 1. =Labellum= connate with base
of the column; produced below into a spur. =Sepals= separate, free
to the base, similar in texture to the petals. =Flowers= small,
delicate white and rose-purple, fragrant; in a short terminal spike.
=Anther-sacs= divergent; pollinia granulose, 1 in each anther-sac, which
is attached at the base to a viscid disk or gland. =Glands= _enclosed_
in a pouch. =Stem=, scape-like, 5-angled, 4-12 inches high. =Leaves=
2, oblong-obovate, shining, basal, with several bracts above. =Roots=
fleshy-fibrous or tuberous.
_Continental Range_—There are three reported species of this genus for
the Continent. _Orchis_, as a genus, contains 80 or more species ranging
throughout the temperate regions of Europe, Asia, Northern Africa,
Canaries, and North America.
North American species 3
New England species 2
Hoosac Valley species 1
New England species:
1. _O. spectabilis_ Linnæus, 1753.
2. _O. rotundifolia_ (Pursh) Lindley, 1814-1835.
1.—ORCHIS SPECTABILIS Linnæus, 1753
SHOWY ORCHIS
The specific name, _spectabilis_, refers to the beautiful spectacle of a
group of these plants in bloom.
Small, damp woodland orchid with fleshy-fibrous roots. April 19th-June
19th.
=Flowers= fragrant, about 1 inch long, violet-purple mixed with
rose-purple and white; 3-6 flowered in a bracted raceme. =Labellum=
divergent, attached to a spur, purple and white. =Sepals= and =petals=
arching in a galea. =Glands= _enclosed_ in a pouch or hooded fold. Stem,
scape-like, 4-12 inches high, thick, 5-angled. =Leaves= 2, basal with 1-2
scales below, and foliaceous bracts above sheathing the seed-capsules.
_Continental Range_—From New Brunswick, Ontario, southward to Georgia and
Alabama; westward to the Rocky Mountains. Ascends 4000 feet altitude in
Virginia.
_New England Range_—Maine, rare; New Hampshire, frequent; Vermont,
frequent; Massachusetts, frequent; Rhode Island, rare; Connecticut,
common.
[Illustration: =The Showy Orchis.= (_Orchis spectabilis._)
The first orchis of the season, showing the hooded fold above the orifice
of the spur and the processes of the flowers on the bracted scape.]
2.—ORCHIS ROTUNDIFOLIA (Pursh) Lindley, 1814-1835[68]
SMALL ROUND-LEAVED ORCHIS
The specific name, _rotundifolia_, refers to the round leaf of this
species.
Small woodland or sphagnous bogland orchid with fleshy-fibrous roots.
June 10th-July.
=Flowers= white, rose-purple, flecked with deeper purple, ½-⅔ inch long,
subtended by bracts; =raceme= 2-6 flowered. =Labellum= 3-lobed, white,
purple-spotted, longer than petals, central lobe largest, two-lobed or
notched at the summit; spur slender, shorter than labellum. =Sepals= and
=petals= oval, rose-color. =Glands= _enclosed_. =Stem= slender, 8-10
inches high. =Leaf= 1 near the base, orbicular or oval, 1½-3 inches long,
and 1-2 inches wide, sheathing scales below.
_Continental Range_—Rare; from Greenland, southward throughout Canada,
in latitude 55°-56° North in British Columbia, Rocky Mountain region to
Bristol Swamps, Addison County, Vermont, and Norfolk, Connecticut (?).
_New England Range_—Maine, rare; New Hampshire, rare; Vermont, rare;
Massachusetts, not reported; Rhode Island, not reported; Connecticut,
doubtfully reported.
III
Habenaria
Willdenow, 1805
REIN ORCHIS—NAKED GLAND ORCHIS
The generic name, _Habenaria_, comes from _habena_, a thong or rein.
=Leafy-stemmed= plants. =Anther= 1. =Glands= _naked_. =Labellum=
spreading or drooping, with a spur at base. =Sepals= and petals free,
similar in structure and color. =Anther-sacs= parallel; pollinia without
caudicles, powdery or granulose. =Flowers= mostly in a spiked raceme,
various in colors, ornamented with spurs, fringed petals and throats.
=Fragrance= delicate and exquisite in several species. =Leaves= 1-many,
lanceolate, becoming bract-like above. In two species—_H. orbiculata_
(Pursh) Torrey and _H. Hookeriana_ A. Gray—the leaves are orbicular and
basal, with or without bracts above. =Roots= thick, fibrous, tuberous or
palmate. =Seedlings= appear numerous in many stations.
_Continental Range_—A genus containing about 450-500 species for the
world, widely distributed in temperate and tropical regions in Europe,
Asia, and America. There are 50-55 species on the continent of North
America north of Mexico.
North American species north of Mexico 50-55
New England species 18
Hoosac Valley species 13-16
New England species:
1. _H. orbiculata_ (Pursh) Torrey, 1814-1826.
2. _H. Hookeriana_ A. Gray, 1836.
3. _H. oblongifolia_ (Paine) Niles, 1865-1903.
4. _H. obtusata_ (Pursh) Richardson, 1814-1823.
5. _H. hyperborea_ (Linnæus) R. Brown, 1767-1813.
6. _H. media_ (Rydberg) Niles, 1901-1903.
7. _H. dilatata_ (Pursh) Hooker, 1814-1825.
8. _H. fragrans_ (Rydberg) Niles, 1901-1903.
9. _H. bracteata_ (Willdenow) R. Brown, 1805-1813.
10. _H. clavellata_ (Michaux) Sprengel, 1803-1826.
11. _H. flava_ (Linnæus) A. Gray, 1753-1840.
12. _H. ciliaris_ (Linnæus) R. Brown, 1753-1813.
13. _H. blephariglottis_ (Willdenow) Torrey, 1805-1826.
14. _H. holopetala_ (Lindley) A. Gray, 1835-1867.
15. _H. lacera_ (Michaux) R. Brown, 1803-1810.
16. _H. grandiflora_ (Bigelow) Torrey, 1824-1826.
17. _H. psycodes_ (Linnæus) A. Gray, 1753-1840.
18. _H. Andrewseii_ White n. sp. (per letter, 1903).
1.—HABENARIA ORBICULATA (Pursh) Torrey, 1814-1826
LARGE ROUND-LEAVED ORCHIS—HEAL-ALL—SHIN-PLASTERS
The specific name, _orbiculata_, refers to the round or orbicular leaves
of this plant.
Tall spiked woodland orchid, with thick fibrous roots. June 17th-July
15th-August 5th.
=Flowers= greenish-white, many in spiked raceme. =Labellum=
oblong-linear, white, spur long. =Sepals= and =petals= ⅓ to ½ as long as
labellum. Sepals spreading, petals smaller. =Stem= or scape 1-2½ feet
high, _bracted_, occasionally producing one small stem-leaf. =Leaves= 2,
basal, large, round, flat-lying, 4-7 inches in diameter.
_Continental Range_—Not uncommon, but scarcely abundant, from
Newfoundland, British Columbia, Lake Superior, southward to the western
mountains of North Carolina; westward to Montana, Idaho, and Washington.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
frequent; Massachusetts, occasional; Rhode Island, not reported;
Connecticut, rather rare.
2.—HABENARIA HOOKERIANA A. Gray, 1836
SMALL, ROUND-LEAVED ORCHIS—HOOKER’S ORCHIS
The specific name, _Hookeriana_, refers to Sir J. Hooker, who studied
this orchid and in whose honor Dr. Gray designated it.
Damp, hilly woodland orchid with fleshy-fibrous roots. June 10th-August
22d.
=Flowers= many, subtended by small bracts in spiked raceme,
yellowish-green; spike 4-8 inches long. =Labellum= linear-lanceolate,
acute ⅓-½ inch long. =Sepals= and =petals= greenish, spreading; petals
awl-shaped ⅓ inch long. =Stem= 8-18 inches high, _not bracted_. =Leaves=
2, oval, obovate, or orbicular, slightly ascending, 3-6 inches long.
_Continental Range_—From Nova Scotia, Lake Huron, Lake Superior,
southward to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, westward to Indiana, Minnesota,
Wisconsin, and Iowa.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, frequent; Vermont,
frequent; Massachusetts, occasional; Rhode Island, rare; Connecticut,
rare.
3.—HABENARIA OBLONGIFOLIA (Paine) Niles, 1865-1903
SMALL OBLONG-LEAVED ORCHIS
The specific name, _oblongifolia_, refers to the oblong leaves.
Damp, hilly woodland orchid with fleshy-fibrous roots. June-August.
=Flowers= many in spiked raceme, yellowish-green similar or identical
with the spike of flowers of _H. Hookeriana_. =Stem= 8-18 inches high,
_not bracted_. =Leaves= 2, _oblong_, ascending.
_Continental Range_—In similar situations with _H. Hookeriana_ and _H.
orbiculata_, from Nova Scotia (Macoun) Campbellton, New Brunswick,
(Chalmers), Chelsea Mountains, Quebec (Fletcher’s _Flora_, Ottawa);
southward to New York (Paine and Dudley), New Jersey (Mrs. Britton), and
throughout New England States; westward to Iowa.
[Illustration: =A Group of Three Species of Genus Habenaria.= 1. =The Tall
Northern Green Orchis.= (_Habenaria hyperborea._) 2. =The Tall Northern
White Orchis.= (_Habenaria dilatata._) 3. =The Large Round-Leaved Orchis.=
(_Habenaria orbiculata._)]
4.—HABENARIA OBTUSATA (Pursh) Richardson, 1814-1823[69]
SUB-ALPINE GREENISH BOG-ORCHIS
The specific name, _obtusata_, refers to the obtuse or blunt sepals and
labellum of this species.
Small sub-alpine bogland orchid, with fibrous roots. June 22d-July
30th-September.
=Flowers=, greenish-yellow in loose spiked raceme 1-2½ inches long;
flowers ¼ inch long. =Labellum= blunt or obtuse, deflexed, entire.
=Lateral sepals= spreading, oblong and obtuse. =Petals= shorter, obtusely
2-lobed at base. =Stem= slender, _not bracted_, 4-10 inches high,
4-angled. =Leaf= 1, basal, obovate.
_Continental Range_—From Alaska, southward throughout Canada to Mt.
Wachusett, Massachusetts; westward to Minnesota, Wyoming, Montana, and
Colorado.
_New England Range_—Maine, frequent; New Hampshire, frequent; Vermont,
rare; Massachusetts, very rare; Mt. Wachusett (Dr. G. E. Stone); Mt.
Washington (Henry Baldwin); Rhode Island, not reported; Connecticut, not
reported.
5.—HABENARIA HYPERBOREA (Linnæus) R. Brown, 1767-1813
TALL GREEN NORTHERN ORCHIS
The specific name, _hyperborea_, refers to the species being tall and a
boreal or northern orchid.
Cold bogland or damp woodland orchid, with thick fleshy roots. May
30th-July 28th-August 18th.
=Flowers= small, greenish-yellow, on bracted spike 3-8 inches long;
infrequent, said to be constructed for self-fertilization, if insects
fail to visit the flowers. =Labellum= lanceolate, obtuse, and entire.
=Sepals= and =petals= obtuse, ovate, ⅙-¼ inch long; upper sepal crenulate
at apex. =Stem= tall, stout, leafy, 8 inches to 3 feet high. =Leaves=
many lanceolate, acute. =Seed-capsule= much twisted.
_Continental Range_—From Greenland, Yakutat Bay and eastern part of
Kadiak Island and vicinity of Sitka, Alaska, to Fort Franklin; southward
to Pennsylvania and New Jersey; westward to Minnesota, Montana,
Washington, New Mexico, and California. This species is closely allied
with the Tall White Fragrant Bog-Orchis (_H. dilatata_). The latter,
however, is not constructed for self-fertilization. Several species of
_Habenaria_ appear to intergrade with each other more or less throughout
their range.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, frequent; Vermont,
abundant; Massachusetts, infrequent; Rhode Island, not reported;
Connecticut, rare.
6.—HABENARIA MEDIA (Rydberg) Niles, 1901-1903[70]
INTERMEDIATE BOG-ORCHIS
The specific name, _media_, refers to the intermediate form of this
species between _H. hyperborea_ and _H. dilatata_.
A tall bogland orchid, with fleshy roots. June-August.
=Flowers= greenish-purplish, spike densely flowered; it has often been
confused with _H. hyperborea_ and _H. dilatata_, which it closely
resembles. Type specimen from Quebec. =Labellum= lanceolate, entire,
obtuse, slightly dilated at the base; spur exceeding the labellum, curved
and obtuse. =Sepals= ovate-oblong; petals lanceolate, obtuse. =Stem=
16 inches to 2½ feet high, rather stout. =Leaves= lanceolate, acute.
Seed-capsule ⅖ inch long.
_Continental Range_—In bogs from Quebec, southward to New York and New
England.
_New England Range_—There are no authoritative stations reported as yet,
although the author collected intermediate forms of _H. hyperborea_ in
Dimmick Swamp, Pownal, Vermont, July, 1903, answering to Dr. Rydberg’s
descriptions of this form. It is also reported by Marcus White and A.
LeRoy Andrews for Pownal Swamps.[71]
7.—HABENARIA DILATATA (Pursh) Hooker, 1814-1825
TALL WHITE NORTHERN ORCHIS
The specific name, _dilatata_, refers to the dilated condition of the
labellum of this orchid.
A tall slender or stout bogland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous or tuberous
roots. June 2d-August 23d.
=Flowers= white, small, in a densely flowered spike 2-10 inches long.
Slightly fragrant. Not constructed for self-fertilization as the closely
allied species _H. hyperborea_. =Labellum= entire, dilated, or obtusely
3-lobed at base. =Spur= blunt and incurved. =Sepals= ovate, obtuse, and
small. =Stem= slender, often stout, inferring that an intermediate form
exists, which Dr. Rydberg has designated specifically as _fragrans_.
=Leaves= lanceolate. =Seed-capsule= much twisted.
_Continental Range_—From Ankow River, Ocean Cape, Alaska, and Unalaska
in latitude 60° North; southward to Litchfield, Connecticut, Amherst,
Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania; westward to Minnesota, Wyoming,
Colorado, also occurring in the cañons of Clear Water Valley, Idaho.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, frequent; Vermont,
frequent; Massachusetts, infrequent; Rhode Island, not reported;
Connecticut, rare.
[Illustration: =The Spikes of Habenaria.= (_Habenaria Andrewseii_ and
_Habenaria psycodes_.)]
8.—HABENARIA FRAGRANS (Rydberg) Niles, 1901-1903[72]
FRAGRANT SLENDER BOG-ORCHIS
The specific name, _fragrans_, refers to the exquisite fragrance of this
species, which is so closely allied with _H. dilatata_ and of which it
appears to be a form.
Slender bogland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots. July.
=Flowers= small, pure white, very fragrant; in a slender spiked raceme.
=Labellum= narrowly linear, dilated at the base, obtuse, shorter than
the curved filiform spur; otherwise as the preceding species. =Sepals=
lanceolate, acutish, strongly striate. =Stem= very slender and leafy
above, 8-12 inches high. =Leaves= linear, several.
_Continental Range_—Reported from a single station in Vermont. Slender
forms of _H. dilatata_, very fragrant and slightly so, are present in the
bogs of Pownal, Vermont, and North Adams, Massachusetts, where the writer
has collected them, believing that they were forms brought about by the
intergrading of the bogland _Habenarias_ closely associated. Species of
_Habenaria_ appear to produce natural hybrids readily.[73]
_New England Range_—Vermont.
9.—HABENARIA BRACTEATA (Willdenow) R. Brown, 1805-1813
LONG BRACTED ORCHIS
The specific name, _bracteata_, refers to the long bracts, subtending the
seed-capsules of this species.
A slender bracted bogland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots. May 8th-July
14th-August 12th.
=Flowers= small, greenish, in a loosely flowered spike, 3-5 inches
long, subtended by long bracts. =Labellum= long, spatulate 2-3 toothed
or lobed, twice as long as sac-like spur. =Sepals= ovate-lanceolate,
spreading, dilated, at base; =petals= very narrow, threadlike. =Stem=
leafy, slender, or stout, 6 inches to 2 feet high. =Leaves= lanceolate,
oval.
_Continental Range_—From Sitka and Unalaska to the Great Plains,
approaching the Rocky Mountains in latitude 55° North; southward
throughout New England to North Carolina; westward to Minnesota, North
and South Dakota, and Montana.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, frequent; Rhode Island, rare; Connecticut, rather
rare.
10.—HABENARIA CLAVELLATA (Michaux) Sprengel, 1803-1826
SMALL YELLOWISH BOG-ORCHIS—SMALL WOOD-ORCHIS
The specific name, _clavellata_, refers to the club-shaped appendages of
stigma or clavate spur attached to the flowers of this species.
A small bogland or woodland orchid, with fibrous roots. May 17th
(Missouri), June (Alabama); July 15th-August (Maine).
=Flowers= small greenish-yellow, in a loosely flowered spike ½-2 inches
long. =Labellum= dilated, 3-toothed at apex; spur longer than ovary,
clavate. =Sepals= and =petals= ovate. =Stem= 8-18 inches high. =Leaf= 1,
near the base, 1-3 bracts above.
_Continental Range_—From Lake Huron, Newfoundland, southward to Alabama;
westward to Indiana, and Missouri. Ascends 6000 feet altitude in North
Carolina.
_New England Range_—Maine, frequent; New Hampshire, frequent; Vermont,
infrequent; Massachusetts, infrequent; Rhode Island, frequent;
Connecticut, frequent.
[Illustration: =The Small Bog.= (_Habenaria clavellata._)]
11.—HABENARIA FLAVA (Linnæus) A. Gray, 1753-1840
TUBERCLED ORCHIS
The specific name, _flava_, comes from the Latin _flavous_, referring to
the yellow flowers of this orchid.
A damp meadow or sphagnous woodland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots.
May (Florida), June 5th-August 25th (New England).
=Flowers= dull greenish-yellow, small, in a spiked raceme. =Labellum=
entire, crenulated with obtuse tooth on each side, and a central tubercle
at middle of base. =Sepals= and =petals= roundish, ¼ inch long. Sepals
yellowish. =Stem= stout leafy 1-2 feet high. =Leaves= elliptic, acute;
=bracts= longer than seed-capsule.
_Continental Range_—From Crow River, Hastings County, Ontario, Canada,
southward to Alabama and the wooded Tidal Swamps, Duval County, Florida;
westward to Minnesota and Missouri.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, frequent; Vermont,
infrequent; Massachusetts, occasional; Rhode Island, common; Connecticut,
common.
12.—HABENARIA CILIARIS (Linnæus) R. Brown, 1753-1813[74]
YELLOW-FRINGED ORCHIS
The specific name, _ciliaris_, refers to the fringed labellum, from the
Latin _ciliate_,—beset with _cilia_ or hairs, like eyelashes fringing the
eyelids.
A tall, wet, sandy meadow or pine barren orchid, with small fibrous
roots. June-July 7th-August 14th.
=Flowers= large, showy, orange-yellow, fringed, in a many-flowered,
spiked raceme, 3-6 inches long; nearly 3 inches broad. =Labellum= oblong
and fringed. =Sepals= orbicular to ovate; lateral sepals reflexed; =spur=
1-1½ inch long, very slender; =petals= toothed, oblong, much smaller.
=Stem= slender, leafy, 1-2½ feet high. =Leaves= lanceolate, 4-8 inches
long, becoming bract-like above.
_Continental Range_—From Essex County, Canada, southward to New England,
the pine barrens of New Jersey, Alabama, and Florida; westward to
Illinois and Nebraska. The fringed _Habenarias_ are among our most
beautiful native orchids, gracing lake-side solitudes with their
flame-like spikes of purple, white, or orange.
_New England Range_—Maine, not reported; New Hampshire, rare; Vermont,
rare; Massachusetts, rare; Rhode Island, rare; Connecticut, rare.
13.—HABENARIA BLEPHARIGLOTTIS (Willdenow) Torrey, 1805-1826
WHITE-FRINGED ORCHIS
The specific name, _blephariglottis_, refers to the fringed throat of
this orchid.
A slender bogland orchid, in similar situations with _H. ciliaris_, with
fleshy-fibrous roots. June (Alabama)-July 23d-August (New England).
=Flowers= pure white, in a loosely and many-flowered spiked raceme,
smaller than those of _H. ciliaris_, with which it seems to intergrade.
=Labellum= narrow, oblong, slightly fringed. =Petals= toothed or sparsely
fringed. =Stem= leafy, slender, 1-2 feet high.
_Continental Range_—From Newfoundland southward to New England, North
Carolina, and Alabama; westward to Minnesota. Intermediate forms between
the Yellow-Fringed and the White-Fringed _Habenarias_ are probably
natural hybrids, as they are closely associated in their haunts during
July and August, the hybrid usually being of a lighter yellow, blooming
slightly earlier than the type species.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, frequent; Vermont,
infrequent; Massachusetts, frequent; Rhode Island, infrequent;
Connecticut, rare.
14.—HABENARIA HOLOPETALA (Lindley) A. Gray, 1835-1867[75]
CREAM-FRINGED ORCHIS
The specific name, _holopetala_, refers to the petals being complete,
entire.
A small bogland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots. July-August.
=Flowers= beautiful, smaller than in preceding species, cream, or lighter
yellow than _H. ciliaris_. =Labellum= sparingly fringed. =Petals=
narrower and entire. =Stem= 1 foot high. =Leaves= similar to type species
_H. blephariglottis_ and _H. ciliaris_.
_Continental Range_—From Canada southward to Alabama, North Carolina, in
company with _H. blephariglottis_.
_New England Range_—Refer to range of _H. blephariglottis_ for New
England.
15.—HABENARIA LACERA (Michaux) R. Brown, 1803-1810
RAGGED-FRINGED GREEN ORCHIS
The specific name, _lacera_, refers to the lacerate or ragged and torn
appearance of the fringed labellum of this species.
A bogland, meadow, or woodland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots. June
20th-July 15.
=Flowers= greenish-yellow, in loose-flowered spike, 2-6 inches long.
=Labellum= 3-parted, deeply fringed or ragged. =Sepals= ovate, obtuse,
upper one broader than lower ones. =Stem= slender or stout, leafy, 1-2½
feet high. =Leaves= lanceolate, 5-8 inches long; bract-like above.
_Continental Range_—From Nova Scotia southward to Georgia and Alabama;
westward to Minnesota and Indiana.
In Thompson’s Swamps, Pownal, Vermont, this species intergrades with _H.
psycodes_ and _H. clavellata_. The hybrids, or those crossed with _H.
psycodes_ produce flowers with light purple, and less fringed than in the
true type of _H. lacera_; while those crossed with _H. clavellata_ are
much less ragged fringed than in the type form of _H. lacera_, although
in a much smaller spike, with nearly white or creamy-green flowers,
resembling a large spike of _H. clavellata_.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, infrequent; Rhode Island, frequent; Connecticut,
common.
16.—HABENARIA GRANDIFLORA (Bigelow) Torrey, 1824-1826
(_Habenaria fimbriata_ A. Gray, 1867)
LARGE PURPLE-FRINGED ORCHIS—LONG PURPLES—DEAD-MEN’S FINGERS—DEAD-MEN’S
THUMBS
The specific name, _grandiflora_, refers to the grand flowers of this
species; the most beautiful among the bogland _Habenarias_.
Tall, damp woodland or bogland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous or palmate
roots. June-July 22d-August 16th.
=Flowers= lilac or deep purple, fragrant in densely-flowered spiked
raceme; 3-15 inches long; 1-2½ inches broad. Rarely white flowered spikes
occur. =Labellum= 3-parted, ½-1 inch broad; ½ inch long, deeply fringed.
=Sepals= and =petals= connivent, somewhat toothed. =Spur= 1-1½ inch long,
clavate. =Stem= leafy, 1-5 feet high. =Leaves= numerous, oblong, 4-10
inches long, 1-3 inches wide; bract-like above.
_Continental Range_—From Nova Scotia southward to North Carolina;
westward to Wisconsin and Michigan.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
frequent; Massachusetts, frequent; Rhode Island, frequent; Connecticut,
common.
17.—HABENARIA PSYCODES (Linnæus) A. Gray, 1753-1840
SMALL PURPLE-FRINGED ORCHIS—LONG PURPLES—DEAD-MEN’S FINGERS—DEAD-MEN’S
THUMBS
The specific name, _psycodes_, comes from the Greek _psychoda_, a
butterfly, probably referring to the dainty poise of the fringed, and
winged-petaled flowers.
Tall bogland or damp woodland orchid, with fleshy or palmately-tuberous
roots. July 1st-August-September.
=Flowers= pink-purple, rarely white, very fragrant in densely flowered
spiked raceme, 2-6 inches long; 1-1½ inches broad. =Labellum= 3-parted,
fan-shaped, fringed, ⅓-½ inch broad, much smaller and often confused with
the larger species (_H. grandiflora_). =Sepals= and =petals= similar in
texture, lower sepals ovate, upper one narrower. Petals oblong, toothed
on upper margin. =Spur= clavate at apex. =Stem= leafy, 1-3 feet high.
_Continental Range_—From Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Lake Huron southward
to the swampy meadows in the western mountains of North Carolina;
westward to Minnesota in tamarack sphagnous swamps.
_New England Range_—Maine, very common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, frequent; Rhode Island, common; Connecticut,
frequent.
18.—HABENARIA ANDREWSEII White n. sp. (per letter), 1903
ANDREWS’ ROSE-PURPLE ORCHIS
_Habenaria psycodes_ × _lacera_ White and Andrews, _Rhodora_ 3:245-248,
1901
The specific name, _Andrewseii_, refers to the species being named in
honor of Dr. A. LeRoy Andrews, who described this species as a varietal
form of _H. psycodes_ × _lacera_. The species was first discovered and
collected by Mr. Marcus White, July 22, 1899.
Tall bogland orchid, with fleshy roots. July 22d-August 16th.
=Flowers= white, to rose-purple. =Labellum= about ⅓-½ inch broad,
divisions deeply cleft as in _Habenaria lacera_, yet more numerous.
=Sepals= round-oval, obtuse. =Petals= cuneate-spatulate and denticulate
above. Arms of column slightly acute, similar to _Habenaria psycodes_.
=Pollen= stalked, greenish-yellow, somewhat 2-lobed, not obstructing the
orifice of nectary, as observed in _Habenaria lacera_. =Spur= longer
than ovary, clavate, much enlarged below. =Ovary= intermediate or rather
short. =Stem= leafy, 1-2½ feet high. =Raceme= of flowers not as broad
as in _Habenaria psycodes_, but more nearly resembling the spike of
_Habenaria lacera_ in form, yet fewer-flowered. =Leaves= several, as in
_Habenaria lacera_.
_Continental Range_—Pownal Swamps, southwestern Vermont; no other station
appears to be reported for this natural hybrid of the Purple-Fringed and
Ragged Orchises (_H. psycodes_ and _H. lacera_), yet it appears to be
flourishing and increasing in numbers in its special haunts.
_New England Range_—Vermont, rare; Pownal Swamps August 5, 1901 (Marcus
White and A. LeRoy Andrews); August 10-16, 1903 (Grace G. Niles).
[Illustration: =Andrews’ Rose-Purple Orchis.= (_Habenaria Andrewseii._)]
IV
Pogonia
Jussieu, 1789
SWEET POGONIAS
The generic name, _Pogonia_, comes from the Greek Πωγωνίας, signifying
_bearded_, from the bearded labellum of the type species.
Small bogland or woodland orchids, with fibrous creeping roots. =Anther=,
1. =Labellum= erect from base of the column, spurless. =Sepals= and
=petals= free. =Anther= terminal, stalked, attached to back of column.
=Pollinia=, 2, 1 in each anther-sac, powdery-granular, without caudicle.
=Flowers= solitary or 1-3 in terminal raceme. =Leaves= 1-5, alternating,
or in whorls as in _Pogonia verticillata_. Seedlings numerous in many
places.
_Continental Range_—There are about forty-five species of this genus
distributed in the wooded regions of the world. The species of _Pogonia_
have formerly been confused with _Arethusa_.
North American species north of Mexico 5
New England species 4
Hoosac Valley species 3-4
New England species:
1. _P. ophioglossoides_ (Linnæus) Ker, 1753-1816.
2. _P. trianthophora_ (Swartz) B. S. P., 1800-1888.
3. _P. verticillata_ (Willdenow) Nuttall, 1805-1818.
4. _P. affinis_ Austin, 1867.
1.—POGONIA OPHIOGLOSSOIDES (Linnæus) Ker, 1753-1816
ROSE POGONIA—SNAKE-MOUTH
The specific name, _ophioglossoides_, refers to the flower resembling a
snake’s mouth.
Small sphagnous swamp-land orchid, with fibrous creeping roots. April-May
(Florida), June 21st-July 20th (New England).
=Flowers= 1, sometimes 2, terminal, nodding, rather large for plants;
rose and purplish-yellow; fragrant, subtended by a foliaceous bract.
=Labellum= free, somewhat appressed to the column below, fringed and
spurless. =Sepals= and =petals= about equal, similar. =Stem= 8-15 inches
high. =Leaves= 1-3, rarely 1 basal leaf; the stem-leaf is ½-3 inches
long, bluntly acute; foliaceous bract subtending seed-capsule.
_Continental Range_—From Newfoundland, southward to the pine barrens of
Alabama and Florida; westward to Minnesota and Kansas.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, common; Rhode Island, common; Connecticut, common.
2.—POGONIA TRIANTHOPHORA (Swartz) B. S. P., 1800-1888[76]
NODDING POGONIA
The specific name, _trianthophora_, refers to the 3-lobed labellum and
the usually 3 nodding flowers of this species.
Small woodland orchid, with tuberous roots. July-August 11th-September
24th.
=Flowers= 1-7 on axillary peduncles, pale purple, at first nearly erect,
soon drooping, ½-⅔ inch long. =Labellum= 3-lobed, clawed, roughened,
without a spur. =Sepals= and =petals= equal, connivent. Stem 3-8 inches
high. =Leaves=, 2-8, alternate, ovate, clasping stem. =Seed-capsule=
oval, drooping.
_Continental Range_—From Canada, southward to North Carolina, Alabama,
and Kentucky; westward to Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Indiana.
_New England Range_—Maine, rare; New Hampshire, infrequent; Vermont,
rare; Massachusetts, rare; Rhode Island, rare; Connecticut, infrequent.
3.—POGONIA VERTICILLATA (Willdenow) Nuttall, 1805-1818
LARGE WHORLED POGONIA
The specific name, _verticillata_, refers to the whorled or verticillate
growth of the leaves.
Small moist woodland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous creeping roots. May
20th-June 15th.
=Flowers= solitary, purplish-green, and yellow, erect or declined,
terminal; peduncle ½-⅔ inch long, in fruit exceeding the seed-capsule.
=Labellum= 3-lobed, crested along a narrow band, upper part expanded,
greenish-yellow. =Sepals= linear, 1½-2 inches long, ¹⁄₁₂ inch wide,
spreading, dark purple; =petals= linear, obtuse, greenish-yellow, ⅚
inch long. =Stem= 10-12 inches high, round and purplish. =Leaves= 5,
verticillate, in a whorl strongly recalling the whorls of the Indian
Cucumber plants (_Medeola_), with which it grows in company; obovate,
terminal, pointed at apex, 1-3 inches long. Rarely an obovate basal
stem-leaf occurs below the whorl. The roots distinguish this plant from
Indian Cucumber, yet many times the two plants so closely resemble
each other that it is difficult to determine one from the other until
the roots are revealed. The stem of the _Pogonia_, however, is larger,
fleshy, purplish, and juicy, while the Indian Cucumber is brittle and
slender.
_Continental Range_—From Ontario, Canada, southward to North Carolina and
Florida; westward to Michigan and Indiana.
_New England Range_—Maine, not reported; New Hampshire, rare; Vermont,
rare; Massachusetts, frequent; Rhode Island, rare; Connecticut, frequent.
4.—POGONIA AFFINIS Austin, 1867[77]
SMALL WHORLED POGONIA
The specific name, _affinis_, comes from the Latin _affinitas_, near
alliance, referring to the close relation or affinity this species bears
to its sister species, _Pogonia verticillata_.
Small moist woodland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots. June.
=Flowers= 2 or solitary, greenish-yellow, peduncle ⅙-⅓ inch long.
=Labellum= crested over the whole face and lobes. =Sepals= and =petals=
equal. =Stem= 8-10 inches high. =Leaves= in a whorl of 5 at the summit,
smaller than the whorl in _P. verticillata_. Seed-capsule erect, 1 inch
long.
_Continental Range_—From northern Vermont, southward to Pennsylvania.
This orchid has quite recently been collected in Vermont, by Mrs. Henry
Holt, near Burlington (1902). Several stations in New Jersey have been
destroyed since Mr. Austin first identified it there.
_New England Range_—Maine, not reported; New Hampshire, not reported;
Vermont, very rare; Massachusetts, very rare; Connecticut, frequent; it
should be more common in this State, since _P. verticillata_ is frequent.
V
Arethusa
Linnæus, 1753
BEAUTIFUL ARETHUSA
The generic name, _Arethusa_, refers to the dedication of this species to
the nymph Arethusa of classical literature.
Small scapose orchids with bulbous roots; one of the most beautiful
native orchids. =Anther= 1. =Labellum= dilated, recurved, bearded down
the face, spreading at the apex. =Sepals= and =petals= similar, arched
above, coherent below. =Anther= operculate. =Pollinia= 4; 2 in each
anther-sac, powdery, granular. =Scape= 5-10 inches high, glabrous.
=Leaves= 1, 4-6 inches long, linear, and hidden. 1-3 =bracts= or scales
below. =Seed-capsule= 1 inch long, ellipsoid, 6-ribbed, rarely maturing.
_Continental Range_—In sphagnous bogs from Newfoundland, southward to
North Carolina; westward to Minnesota. Rare throughout its range, seeking
unfathomable cranberry marshes, among bushes of Kalmia and Labrador Tea,
in close company with Rose Pogonia and Grass Pinks. A genus, consisting
of 3 species for the world.
North American species north of Mexico 1
New England species 1
Hoosac Valley species 1
New England species:
1. _A. bulbosa_ Linnæus, 1753.
1.—ARETHUSA BULBOSA Linnæus, 1753
BEAUTIFUL ARETHUSA
The specific name, _bulbosa_, refers to the bulbous roots of this orchid.
Small scapose, bogland orchid with bulbous roots. May 17th-June 30th.
=Flowers= 1, rarely 2; rose-purple, terminal, nodding, arising from
between 2 unequal =scales=; 1-2 inches long. =Labellum= drooping,
dilated, recurved, spreading at apex, often fringed or toothed,
variegated with purple blotches and yellow. =Sepals= and =petals=
linear, obtuse, arched over the column. =Scape= 5-10 inches high,
glabrous, producing 1-3 sheathing bracts. =Leaf= 1, linear, many-nerved,
4-6 inches long, hidden above bracts. =Root= small, onion-like bulb.
=Seed-capsule= 1 inch long, ellipsoid, 6-ribbed, rarely maturing,
although seedlings appear numerous in natural haunts, the sphagnum being
filled with lightly-attached bulbs.
_Continental Range_—From Newfoundland, southward to North Carolina;
westward to Minnesota.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, frequent; Rhode Island, common; Connecticut,
common.
[Illustration: =The Beautiful Arethusa.= (_Arethusa bulbosa_.)
Showing the structural parts of the flower, the single leaf, and bulbous
root.]
VI
Gyrostachys
Persoon, 1807
(_Spiranthes_ L. C. Richard, 1818)
LADIES’ TRESSES
The generic name, _Gyrostachys_, refers to the twisting spikes, which
resemble a “coil,” or “curl,” from which originated the common name of
Ladies’ Tresses.
Erect spiked racemes of twisting flowers. =Anther= 1. =Labellum= clawed,
concave, erect, embracing the column. =Sepals= free, coherent at top with
petals, forming a galea. =Flowers= small, spurless, white or greenish, in
rows. =Anther= without a lid, situated back of column. =Pollinia= 2, 1
in each anther-sac, powdery. =Fragrance= delicate. =Stem= leafy, bracted
above basal leaves. =Leaves= linear, save in two species—_G. simplex_
and _G. gracilis_, in which they are round, oblong, and basal. =Roots=
fleshy-fibrous, or tuberous. Seed-capsule erect and oblong.
_Continental Range_—Common in pasture-land and meadow boglands; from
Alaska, southward to Florida; westward to the Pacific coast. There are
80 or more species of this genus distributed throughout the tropical and
temperate regions of the world.
North American species north of Mexico 19-20
New England species 6
Hoosac Valley species 5-6
New England species:
1. _G. Romanzoffiana_ (Chamisso), MacMillan, 1828-1892.
2. _G. plantaginea_ (Rafinesque), Britton, 1818-1896.
3. _G. ochroleuca_ Rydberg, 1901.
4. _G. cernua_ (Linnæus), Kuntze, 1753-1891.
5. _G. simplex_ (A. Gray), Kuntze, 1867-1891.
6. _G. gracilis_ (Bigelow), Kuntze, 1824-1891.
1.—GYROSTACHYS ROMANZOFFIANA (Chamisso), MacMillan, 1828-1892
HOODED LADIES’ TRESSES
The specific name, _Romanzoffiana_, refers to the species being named in
honor of Count Romanzov, a Russian nobleman.
Rather conspicuous bogland orchid, with 1-6 tuberous roots. July
15th-August 27th-September 8th.
=Flowers= white or greenish, 3-rowed, in spiked racemes, slightly
twisted, 2-4 inches long, ⅓-⅔ inch thick; very fragrant. =Labellum=
oblong, contracted below the crisped apex. =Sepals= and =petals= broad
at the base, hooded above. =Stem= 6-15 inches high. =Leaves= below, near
the base, 3-8 inches long, with bracts above. Seedlings produce but one
tuber, older plants several adhering, older tubers finally withering.
_Continental Range_—From Unalaska and New Metlakatla, along the
southeastern coast of Alaska, southward to Pennsylvania; westward to
the Pacific Ocean, ascending 8500 feet altitude in moist meadows in
Yellowstone Park, Montana, and 9500 feet on Mount Graham, in Arizona. It
is especially a Northern species.
_New England Range_—Maine, frequent; New Hampshire, infrequent; Vermont,
infrequent; Massachusetts, rare; Reservoir Swamp, Notch Road, North
Adams, August 17th, 1903 (Grace G. Niles); swamps, base of Mount
Greylock, Adams, (Marcus White); Mr. White is the first botanist to
collect this species in Massachusetts.
[Illustration: =The Hooded Ladies’ Tresses.= (_Gyrostachys
Romanzoffiana._)]
2.—GYROSTACHYS PLANTAGINEA (Rafinesque) Britton, 1818-1896
EARLY BROAD-LEAVED LADIES’ TRESSES
The specific name, _plantaginea_, refers to a supposed resemblance of
this species to the spikes and foliage of certain species of Plantain
(_Plantago_).
Small moist woodland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots. June 7th-July
2nd-August 15th.
=Flowers= yellow and white, spreading, ¼ inch long, in densely flowered
raceme, 1-2 inches long, ⅓-½ inch thick. =Labellum= pale yellow on
face, oblong, not contracted in middle, apex rounded and fringed, base
clawed. =Sepals= and =petals= white; lateral sepals free, lanceolate,
upper sepal, united with petals. =Stem= 4-10 inches high. =Leaves= 4-5,
oblanceolate, 1-5 inches long, becoming bract-like above.
_Continental Range_—From New Brunswick, Ontario, southward to Virginia;
westward to Wisconsin and Minnesota. Rather rare in the southern and
western range; nowhere abundant.
=New England Range=—Maine, rare; New Hampshire, rare; Vermont, frequent;
Massachusetts, rare; Rhode Island, not reported; Connecticut, rare.
3.—GYROSTACHYS OCHROLEUCA Rydberg, Britton’s _Manual_. 300, 1901[78]
YELLOW LADIES’ TRESSES
The specific name, _ochroleuca_, refers to the yellowish-green or
ochroleucous color of the flowers.
Small hillside and damp pasture-land orchid, with fleshy or tuberous
roots. August-September 1st-15th.
=Flowers= yellowish-green, very fragrant, in densely flowered raceme,
conspicuously acute in bud, of creamy-green color, in company with _G.
cernua_, but not so abundant. =Labellum= oblong, crenulate or crisped.
=Stem= 12-20 inches high, pubescent. =Leaves= linear, tapering at both
ends, basal, with bract-like leaves above. Slightly later than _G.
cernua_.
_Continental Range_—From New Hampshire, southward to Pennsylvania, and
North Carolina.
_New England Range_—Without doubt in each State in company with _G.
cernua_, of which it appears to be a form. Frequent Mt. Washington,
Massachusetts, and swamps about North Adams, September 1st (Grace G.
Niles).
4.—GYROSTACHYS CERNUA (Linnæus) Kuntze, 1753-1891
NODDING LADIES’ TRESSES
The specific name, _cernua_, refers to cernuous or nodding flowers of
this species.
Small bogland or damp meadow orchid, with fleshy or tuberous roots.
August 25th-September 1st-28th-October.
=Flowers= white, fragrant, nodding or spreading, ½ inch long, in three
rows; densely flowered raceme, twisted, 4-5 inches long, ½-⅔ inch thick.
=Labellum= oblong, apex rounded, crisped. Lateral =sepals= free; upper
one arching with =petals=. =Stem= 6-25 inches high. =Leaves= at or near
base, linear-oblanceolate, 3-14 inches long, with 2-6 bracts above.
_Continental Range_—From the Barren Grounds in latitude 64°-69° North,
southward to Florida; westward to Minnesota, Kansas, Indian Territory,
Texas, and New Mexico.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, common; Connecticut, very common.
[Illustration: =The Nodding Ladies’ Tresses.= (_Gyrostachys cernua._)]
5.—GYROSTACHYS SIMPLEX (A. Gray) Kuntze, 1867-1891[79]
LITTLE SIMPLE LADIES’ TRESSES
The specific name, _simplex_, refers to the simplicity of this species.
Slender sandy soil orchid, with _single_ tuberous root. August-September
9th.
=Flowers=, white, small, ¹⁄₁₂ inch long; in slender, twisting, spiked
raceme, 1 inch long. =Labellum= obovate-oblong, short-clawed, and crisped
at the summit; callosities nipple-shaped. =Stem= simple and slender, 5-9
inches high, with small bracts above basal leaves, glabrous, slightly
twisted. =Leaves= 2-3 basal, oblong and short, disappearing at or after
flowering season.
_Continental Range_—From Massachusetts, southward to Delaware, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee. It appears more frequent
near the coast, from Nantucket, Delaware, Staten Island, and throughout
New Jersey, in company with _G. gracilis_.
_New England Range_—Massachusetts, rare; Rhode Island, rare; Connecticut,
infrequent.
6.—GYROSTACHYS GRACILIS (Bigelow) Kuntze, 1824-1891
SLENDER LADIES’ TRESSES
The specific name, _gracilis_, refers to the slender and grass-like spike
of this species.
Small sandy woodland or pasture-land orchid, with several spindle-shaped
tuberous roots. April 15th, Florida (Curtiss); May, Alabama; July
25th-September-October 15th, both North and South.
=Flowers= white, very fragrant, ⅙-¼ inch long, in a slender spiked
raceme, 1-3 inches long, ⅓-½ inch thick, loose, usually much twisted.
=Labellum= white on margins, thick and greenish in middle, ⅙ inch long,
clawed at the base, crenulate at the apex. =Stem= 8-24 inches high,
slender, grass-like. =Leaves= 3 obovate, sometimes nearly orbicular,
basal, dying away at or before flowering season.
_Continental Range_—From Nova Scotia, southward throughout Canada, and
New England, to Florida; westward to Minnesota, and Texas.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, very common; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, common; Rhode Island, very common; Connecticut,
common.
[Illustration: =The Slender Ladies’ Tresses.= (_Gyrostachys gracilis._)
Showing the spindle-shaped roots; this species is closely allied with _G.
simplex_, which produces but a single tuber.]
VII
Listera
R. Brown, 1813[80]
LISTER’S TWAYBLADE
The generic name, _Listera_, is in honor of Martin Lister, 1638(?)-1712,
a correspondent of Ray.
Small orchids with fleshy-fibrous roots. =Anther=, 1. =Labellum= 2-cleft,
longer than petals. =Sepals= and =petals= nearly alike. =Flowers= in
terminal raceme, spurless. =Anther= erect, joined to column, without a
lid. =Pollinia=, 2, united to gland, powdery. =Stem= 3-10 inches high.
=Leaves=, 2, opposite, near the middle of the stem, 1-2 scales below.
_Continental Range_—In moist woodlands and boglands from Alaska,
southward to Florida; westward to the Pacific coast. There are 12 species
or more belonging to the north temperate zone which are closely related
to species of _Gyrostachys_ and _Peramium_, save in the herbaceous
foliage.
North American species north of Mexico 8
New England species 3
Hoosac Valley species 1-2
New England species:
1. _L. convallarioides_ (Swartz) Torrey, 1800-1826.
2. _L. auriculata_ Wiegand, 1899.
3. _L. cordata_ (Linnæus) R. Brown, 1753-1813.
1.—LISTERA CONVALLARIOIDES (Swartz) Torrey, 1800-1826[81]
BROAD-LIPPED TWAYBLADE
The specific name, _convallarioides_, refers probably to a supposed
resemblance of this species to _Convallaria_, the Lily-of-the-Valley.
Small woodland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots. June 9th-August 17th.
=Flowers= purplish-yellow, 3-15 spurless, subtended by acute bracts,
¼-⅓ inch long. =Labellum= wedge-shaped, broader than sepals or petals,
produced into 2 distinct lobes at the apex, notched in center, ornamented
with tooth at the base. =Sepals= and =petals= linear-lanceolate. =Stem=
4-10 inches high. =Leaves= 2, nearly orbicular in the middle of stem,
opposite, smooth, obtuse at the apex, 3-9 nerved.
_Continental Range_—From the wooded coast Unalaska, southward throughout
the Canadian provinces, to North Carolina; westward to the fir-forests of
Idaho, Washington, Wyoming, Sierra Nevada Mountains, and the Bay region
of California.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, frequent; Vermont,
infrequent; Massachusetts, doubtfully reported.
2.—LISTERA AURICULATA Wiegand, 1899[82]
AURICLED TWAYBLADE
The specific name, _auriculata_, from _auriculum_, ear, refers to the
auricled base of the labellum and leaves of this species.
Small cedar swamp orchid, with fibrous roots. July.
=Flowers=, many in slender raceme. =Labellum= slightly ciliate, oblong,
broadest at the auricled base, cleft ¼-⅓ its length. =Sepals= lanceolate;
=petals= oblong-linear, longer than the ovary, spreading, obtuse. =Stem=
4-7 inches high, slender. =Leaves= large, oval, or elliptic-ovate, borne
above the middle of the stem.
_Continental Range_—From Quebec, southward to Maine and New Hampshire.
_New England Range_—Maine, rare; New Hampshire, rare.
3.—LISTERA CORDATA (Linnæus) R. Brown, 1753-1813.
HEART-LEAVED TWAYBLADE
The specific name, _cordata_, refers to the cordate or heart-shaped
leaves.
Small, moist woodland orchid, with fibrous roots. June 27th-July
30th-August 8th.
=Flowers= minute, purplish, in a loose raceme, ½-2 inches long, 4-20
flowered, pedicels bracted, ⅙ inch long. =Labellum= 2-cleft, narrow, with
a tooth on each side at the base. =Sepals= and =petals= oblong-linear.
=Stem= slender, 3-10 inches high. =Leaves= 2, heart-shaped, or cordate
½-1 inch long.
_Continental Range_—From Alaska, southward to Sierra Nevada Mountains
in the Pacific region; and New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, in the
Atlantic region. It appears to be more of a northern plant than _L.
convallarioides_.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, infrequent; Rhode Island, rare; Connecticut, rare.
VIII
Peramium
Salisbury, 1812
(Goodyera R. Brown, 1813)
RATTLESNAKE PLANTAIN
The origin of the generic name, _Peramium_, is not given in the original
description. It may come from _Ammon_, _Amen_, the Egyptian Sun-God of
Life, since to the blotched leaves of this genus the Indians attribute
great powers, as a remedy against the deadly amniotic poison received
from the rattlesnake’s bite.
Orchids with erect bracted scapes, and fleshy-fibrous roots. =Anther=
1. =Labellum= concave, or sessile roundish-ovate. Lower =sepals= free,
upper one united with petals into a galea. =Flowers= in densely-flowered,
or 1-sided bracted spikes. =Anther= erect, attached to column, without
a lid. =Pollinia= 2, 1 in each anther-sac, composed of angular grains
attached to small disk, cohering with top of stigma. =Stems= or =scapes=
bracted, 5-20 inches high. =Leaves= several, basal, blotched, with
beautiful network of white, green or yellow, resembling a snake’s skin.
=Seed-capsule= erect, nearly always maturing. =Seedlings= abundant in
_conifer_ shades.
_Continental Range_—From Alaska, southward to Florida; westward to
Minnesota and California. There are 25 or more species of this genus
ranging in the temperate and tropical regions of the world.
North American species north of Mexico 5
New England species 4
Hoosac Valley species 3-4
New England species:
1. _P. repens_ (Linnæus) Salisbury, 1753-1812.
2. _P. pubescens_ (Willdenow) MacMillan, 1805-1892.
3. _P. Menziesii_ (Lindley) Morong, 1840-1894.
4. _P. ophioides_ (Fernald) Rydberg, 1899-1901.
1.—PERAMIUM REPENS (Linnæus) Salisbury, 1753-1812
SMALL ONE-SIDED GOODYERA—NET-LEAF RATTLESNAKE PLANTAIN
The specific name, _repens_, refers to the creeping roots of this species.
Small _conifer_, woodland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots. July
19th-August 5th-30th.
=Flowers= white, on _1-sided_ spike, ⅙-¼ inch long. =Labellum= saccate,
recurved, narrowed at apex; column short. =Stem= 5-10 inches high.
=Leaves= ovate, basal in a rosette, pointed, yellowish-green, ½-1¼ inch
long, ⅓-⅔ inch wide, blotched with white or lighter yellowish-green;
several bracts above. This species intergrades with other New England
species of _Peramium_, so as to make their designation difficult in many
stations.
_Continental Range_—From Nova Scotia, possibly Alaska (?), southward to
Florida; westward to Minnesota, South Dakota, and Colorado. Ascends 5000
feet altitude in Virginia.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, infrequent; Rhode Island, very rare; Connecticut,
rare.
2.—PERAMIUM PUBESCENS (Willdenow) MacMillan, 1805-1892
DOWNY RATTLESNAKE PLANTAIN—CANKER-ROOT
The specific name, _pubescens_, refers to the hirsute or downy leaves and
scape of this species.
Small _conifer_ woodland orchid, with fleshy-fibrous roots. June 15
Virginia (Curtiss); May 8th Wisconsin; July 4th-September, New England.
=Flowers= greenish-white, in densely-flowered (_not 1-sided_) spike.
=Labellum= saccate, apex recurved, obtuse. Lateral sepals ovate; =petals=
and upper sepal arching in an ovate galea. =Stem= 6-20 inches high,
clothed with hairs, much more hirsute, or downy, than _P. repens_.
=Leaves= basal, in a rosette, 1-2 inches long, strongly blotched with
greenish-white, 5-10 scales above. The Creeping Goodyera (_P. repens_)
intergrades with this species and causes confusion in designation. _P.
pubescens_ spikes are _not 1-sided_, the rosette of leaves are of a bluer
velvety green, blotched with a purer white network, while _P. repens_
rosette of leaves is dull yellowish-green.
_Continental Range_—From Ontario, Newfoundland, southward to Florida;
westward to Minnesota. Ascends 4000 feet altitude in North Carolina.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, frequent; Rhode Island, rare; Connecticut, common.
[Illustration: =The Haunts of the Rattlesnake Plantain, amid the Pines
and Spruces of the Domelet, Pownal, Vermont.=]
3.—PERAMIUM MENZIESII (Lindley) Morong, 1840-1894[83]
MENZIES’ RATTLESNAKE PLANTAIN
The specific name, _Menziesii_, refers to the dedication of this species,
in honor of the explorer and botanist Menzies.
Small _conifer_ woodland orchid, with fibrous-fleshy roots. June-July
21st-August 20th-September 15th.
=Flowers= greenish-white, spike _not 1-sided_. =Labellum= scarcely
saccate, swollen at base, apex narrower, and recurved. =Anther= ovate,
pointed; the buds, flowers, and leaves are all conspicuously acute.
=Stem= 8-15 inches high. =Leaves= basal in rosette, bracts above, often
without blotches of white; resembling _P. pubescens_ very much, although
the basal leaves are stiffer and acute at apex and base. The _Peramiums_
intergrade with each other, confusing their specific characters.
_Continental Range_—From Loring, Chilcat, southeast coast of Alaska,
southward to Lake Huron, Quebec, Maine, Vermont(?), and New York;
westward to Arizona and California. Ascends 9500 feet altitude in Arizona.
_New England Range_—Maine, rare; New Hampshire, rare; Vermont, doubtfully
reported; Massachusetts, doubtfully reported.
4.—PERAMIUM OPHIOIDES (Fernald) Rydberg, 1899-1901
WHITE-BLOTCHED RATTLESNAKE PLANTAIN
The specific name, _ophioides_, comes from _ophis_, a serpent, and
_oides_, like, referring to the blotched leaves resembling a snake’s skin.
Small cold mossy woodland orchid with thick fleshy-fibrous roots.
July-September.
=Flowers= greenish-white; galea concave with a short, strongly recurved
tip. =Labellum= deeply saccate, with recurved margins and tip. =Anther=
blunt. =Scape= 4-8 inches high, glandular-pubescent. =Leaves= basal in
rosette, several; leaf-blade broadly ovate, dark green, usually with the
white blotches most conspicuous along the cross-veins. Spike of flowers
_1-sided_, loosely arranged. A variety of _P. repens_, with which it is
confused.
_Continental Range_—From Prince Edward Island to Manitoba, southward to
North Carolina, in company with _P. repens_ and _P. pubescens_.
_New England Range_—Vermont, frequent; Massachusetts, common.
IX
Achroanthes
Rafinesque, 1808
(_Microstylis_ Nuttall, 1818)
ADDER’S-MOUTH
The generic name, _Achroanthes_, refers to the green flowers of this
genus.
Small orchids with solid bulbs. =Anther=, 1. =Labellum= cordate, or
eared, at the base, embracing the column. =Sepals= free; petals linear,
spreading. =Flowers= minute white or greenish, in a terminal raceme.
=Anther= erect between the auricles, 2-celled. =Pollinia=, 4, 2 in each
anther-sac, smooth and waxy, without caudicles or glands, and cohering at
summit. =Stem=, 4-10 inches high. =Leaf= 1, with several scales at base
of stem. =Seed-capsule= oval, or globose.
_Continental Range_—From Alaska, southward to Florida; westward to
Nebraska and Arizona, where a species seeks 9500 feet elevation on Mount
Graham. There are 70-80 species reported in the temperate and tropical
regions of the world.
North American species north of Mexico 7
New England species 2
Hoosac Valley species 2
New England species:
1. _A. monophylla_ (Linnæus) Green, 1753-1891.
2. _A. unifolia_ (Michaux) Rafinesque, 1803-1808.
1.—ACHROANTHES MONOPHYLLA (Linnæus) Green, 1753-1891
WHITE ADDER’S-MOUTH
The specific name, _monophylla_, refers, inappropriately, to the one
leaf, since each of our New England species are 1-leaved.
Small woodland orchid, with bulbous root. June 20th-July 25th-August 2d.
=Flowers= whitish, in a club-like raceme, 1-3 inches long, ¼-½ inch
thick; flowers ¹⁄₁₂ inch long, minute, pedicels nearly erect, subtended
by bracts ⅙ inch long. =Labellum= ovate, acuminate, notched on sides.
=Sepals= and =petals= acute, narrow. =Stem=, 4-6 inches high. =Leaf=,
1, sheathing at its base, 1-2 inches long, distinguished from following
species, _A. unifolia_, by being near base of stem instead of middle.
_Continental Range_—From New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, southward to
Vermont, doubtfully reported for New Bedford, Massachusetts; westward to
Oneida, New York, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Indiana, and Texas.
_New England Range_—Maine, infrequent; New Hampshire, rare; Vermont,
Pownal, Swamp of Oracles (Marcus White), rare; Massachusetts, Berlin,
and Spencer (Dr. G. E. Stone); Mount Greylock bog, North Adams (Marcus
White), rare.
2.—ACHROANTHES UNIFOLIA (Michaux) Rafinesque, 1803-1808
GREEN ADDER’S-MOUTH
The specific name, _unifolia_, one-leaved, refers, like the preceding
species, to the 1 leaf.
Small damp woodland orchid, with bulbous root. May-June 26th (South)-July
25th-August 10th-September (North).
=Flowers= in club-shaped raceme 1-3 inches long, 1 inch thick; greenish,
minute, ¹⁄₁₂ inch long, pedicels slender, spreading, ¼-½ inch long.
=Labellum= broad, 3-toothed at apex. =Sepals= oblong. =Stem=, 4-10 inches
high. =Leaf=, 1, near the middle of stem, clasping, nearly orbicular.
=Seed-capsule= oval, drooping.
_Continental Range_—From Newfoundland, Ontario, southward to Florida;
westward to Missouri and Minnesota. Ascends 4000 feet altitude in North
Carolina.
_New England Range_—Maine, frequent; New Hampshire, frequent; Vermont,
Pownal (Grace G. Niles), rare; Massachusetts, Mount Greylock pasture,
North Adams (Marcus White), rare; Rhode Island, rare; Connecticut, rare.
[Illustration: =The Green Adder’s-Mouth.= (_Achroanthes unifolia._)]
X
Leptorchis
Thouars, 1808
(_Liparis_ Richard, 1818)
LILY-LEAVED TWAYBLADE
The generic name, _Leptorchis_, comes from the Greek, referring to a
slender orchid. The former name, _Liparis_, referred to the smooth and
shining leaves of these plants.
Small low orchids with bulbous roots. =Anther=, 1. =Labellum= nearly
flat, often bearing 2 tubercles above the base. =Sepals= and =petals=
spreading, petals usually narrow. =Flowers= in a terminal raceme,
numerous and showy. =Pollinia=, 4, 2 in each anther-sac, smooth and waxy,
slightly united, without stalks or glands. =Stem= or =scape=, 2-10 inches
high. =Leaves=, 2, basal, broad, oval and shining, with several sheathing
scales at base. Two or three seasons bulbs adhere to the latest bulb, and
in time wither away. =Seed-capsule= long, erect, club-shaped.
_Continental Range_—In moist woodlands and along springy roadside
banks. From Canada, New England southward to Georgia; westward to Iowa,
Minnesota, and Washington. There are about 100 species of this genus,
distributed in the temperate and tropical regions of the world.
North American species north of Mexico 2
New England species 2
Hoosac Valley species 2
New England species:
1. _L. liliifolia_ (Linnæus) Kuntze, 1753-1891.
2. _L. Loeselii_ (Linnæus) MacMillan, 1753-1892.
1.—LEPTORCHIS LILIIFOLIA (Linnæus) Kuntze, 1753-1891
LARGE LILY-LEAVED TWAYBLADE
The specific name, _liliifolia_, refers to the lily-leaves of this
species.
Small, moist woodland orchid, with bulbous onion-like roots, more or less
exposed. May 17th-June 1st-July 16th.
=Flowers= purplish-green in loose terminal raceme, many-flowered, and
showy. =Labellum= purple, wedge-obovate. =Sepals= and =petals= narrow
and reflexed. =Stem= or =scape=, 4-10 inches high. =Leaves=, 2, basal,
oval, 2-5 inches long, smooth shining emerald-green. =Seed-capsule=
club-shaped, erect.
_Continental Range_—From Maine southward to Georgia and Alabama; westward
to Minnesota.
_New England Range_—Maine, rare; New Hampshire, infrequent; Vermont,
infrequent; Massachusetts, infrequent; Rhode Island, rare; Connecticut,
frequent.
[Illustration: =The Large Twayblade.= (_Leptorchis liliifolia._)]
2.—LEPTORCHIS LOESELII (Linnæus) MacMillan, 1753-1892
LOESEL’S GREEN TWAYBLADE—FEN-ORCHIS
The specific name, _Loeselii_, refers to the dedication of this species
in honor of the botanist Loesel.
Small damp thicket or dry sandy roadside orchid, with onion-like bulbous
roots; old bulbs adhering to latest bulb, somewhat exposed. May 30th-June
25th-July 27th.
=Flowers= greenish, minute ⅙-¼ inch long, in a few-flowered raceme,
smaller than preceding species, _L. liliifolia_; one of the smallest
native orchids. =Labellum= pointed, obovate, apex incurved. =Sepals=
narrow, lanceolate. =Petals= reflexed, linear. =Stem= or =scape= 2-8
inches high, 5-7 ribbed. =Leaves= 2, basal, 2-6 inches long, stiff,
strongly veined, resembling Plantain leaves. =Seed-capsules= erect,
wide-angled.
_Continental Range_—From Nova Scotia southward to Maryland, Kentucky;
westward, to Minnesota and Washington.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, frequent; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, infrequent; Rhode Island, not reported;
Connecticut, rare.
XI
Calypso[84]
Salisbury, 1807
BEAUTIFUL CALYPSO—NORTHERN CALYPSO
The generic name, _Calypso_, refers to the dedication of this genus to
the Goddess Calypso. Its Greek signification is not only, as Salisbury
wrote, to “cover and conceal” the stigma of the species, but also to
preserve a poetical analogy between this botanical goddess, so difficult
of access, and the secluded Goddess of Silence, whose Isle of Ogygia was
fabled to be miraculously protected from observation by navigators.[85]
Small bogland orchid with solid bulbous and coralloid roots. =Anther=
1. =Labellum= shoe-shaped, saccate, 2-parted at the apex. =Sepals=
and =petals= free, similar in texture. =Flowers= 1, large, terminal
pendulous, bracted, resembling a Lady’s Slipper (_Cypripedium_). Linnæus
wrongly designated this species _Cypripedium bulbosum_ in 1753. =Stem= or
=scape= 3-6 inches high. =Leaf= 1, hyemal, appearing as an autumnal leaf
about September 2d,[86] sheathed above by 2-3 scales. =Anther= lid-like
below the summit of column. =Pollinia= 2, 2-parted, without caudicles,
waxy, sessile, on a thick gland. =Seed-capsule= about ½ inch long,
many-nerved.
_Continental Range_—From Alaska, Labrador, southward, to Middlebury,
Vermont, and doubtfully reported for Pelham, Massachusetts; westward
to California and New Mexico. First collected in the United States in
the State of Vermont, at Charleston and Morgan by the botanist Carey,
who resided at Bellows Falls in 1831-1833. A monotypic species ranging
in cooler portions of north temperate zone, in Europe, Asia, and North
America, assuming slight varietal changes in different regions.
North American species 1
New England species 1
Hoosac Valley species 0
New England species:
1. _C. bulbosa_ (Linnæus) Oakes, 1753-1842.
1.—CALYPSO BULBOSA (Linnæus) Oakes, 1753-1842[87]
BEAUTIFUL CALYPSO—NORTHERN CALYPSO
The specific name, _bulbosa_, refers to the bulbous root of this
species, which was originally confounded by Linnæus in 1753 as a bulbous
_Cypripedium_, and later placed under its generic designation _Calypso_
by Salisbury in 1807.
Small sphagnous bogland or _conifer_ woodland orchid, with bulbous and
coralloid roots. April 19th-May 3d-June 15th-July 12th.
=Flowers= terminal, variegated with purple-pink, yellow, or white;
shoe-shaped or saccate, resembling a Lady’s Slipper, with which genus it
was confused by Linnæus in 1753. =Labellum= large, saccate or shoe-shaped
pink-purple, 2-parted at apex, with patch of yellow (or white) woolly
hairs near the point of division, spreading. =Sepals= and =petals=
free, similar in texture. =Stem= or =scape= 3-6 inches high. =Leaf= 1,
autumnal, appearing about September 2d, hyemal, basal, sheathed above by
2-3 scales. =Seed-capsule= ½ inch long, many-nerved.
_Continental Range_—From Sitka, Alaska, Labrador, southward to
Middlebury, Vermont, and possibly as far south as Pelham, Massachusetts;
westward to Humboldt Bay, mouth of Russian River, California, and
northeastern New Mexico.
First collected in the United States in Vermont by the botanist Carey in
1831-1833. The Rocky Mountain _Calypso_ appears to be distinguished from
the eastern _Calypso_ by producing a beard of white instead of yellow
hairs at the point of division of the labellum. This varietal form is
designated _Calypso occidentalis_ (Holzinger) Heller.
Robert Brown, as early as 1813, attempted to establish a distinct species
in the American _Calypso_, from that of the European and Asiatic forms.
He designated the North American form, _Calypso Americana_. Neither
Lindley nor Hooker approved of this distinction, Hooker remarking that
the species even in the same country may vary in structure or colors,
but not permanently enough to designate it specifically. Smith, Richard
and Lindley later agreed with Dr. Hooker in “considering the American,
European and Asiatic _Calypso_ the same.”
_Calypso bulbosa_ is the only species of this genus in the north
temperate zone, and is nearly related to the section _Pleiones_ of
genus _Cœlogyne_, meaning “two-lipped” or 2-parted at the apex of the
labellum. _Cœlogyne_ is a native of Asia, and many of the closely allied
_Pleiones_ are alpine-orchids, their large rose-colored or cream-colored
flowers clinging to the branches of sturdy oaks at an altitude of 7500
feet in latitude 30° North. _Calypso_ also seeks the colder lands,
of the _conifer_ forests of Alaska and Labrador, in latitude 54°-69°
North; while in the Rocky Mountain region it is found at an elevation of
4000-5000 feet above sea level.
_New England Range_—Maine, frequent; New Hampshire, infrequent; Vermont,
frequent northward; Massachusetts, doubtfully reported.
[Illustration: =Northern Calypso.= (_Calypso bulbosa._)
“_Calypso, goddess of an ancient time,_
_(I learn it not from any Grecian rhyme._
_And yet the story I can vouch is true.)_
_Beneath a pine tree lost her dainty shoe._
_The goddess surely must have been in haste,_
_Like Daphne fleeing when Apollo chased,_
_And leaving here her slipper by the way,_
_Intends to find it on another day._”
W. W. BAILEY.
From lithograph in Meehan’s _Native Flowers and Ferns of the United
States_, 1: 1878. By permission.]
XII
Corallorhiza
R. Brown, 1813
CORAL-ROOT
The generic name, _Corallorhiza_, refers to the coral-like masses of the
roots of this genus.
Scapose orchids, saprophytes or root-parasites, with large masses of
coralloid branching roots. =Anther= 1. =Labellum= 1-3 ridged. =Sepals=
and =petals= equal; 1-3 nerved, lateral sepals united at the base with
the foot of the column, forming a short spur. =Flowers= several in a
terminal raceme, purplish, yellowish and white. =Anther= terminal,
operculate. =Pollinia= 4, in 2-pairs, free, soft and waxy. =Stem= or
=scape= 4-20 inches high. =Leaves= all reduced to scales. =Seed-capsule=
oblong, drooping when ripe.
_Continental Range_—In rich woodlands. From Alaska, southward to Florida;
westward to the Pacific region. There are about 15 species of this
strange genus in the north temperate zone of the world. These species
are destitute of green or any distinct form of foliage; their roots are
without form, assuming coral-like masses, which draw nourishment for the
plants from humus—the rich decay of dead roots and trees in the soil.
These plants are known as saprophytes or root parasites.
North American species north of Mexico 9
New England species 4
Hoosac Valley species 3
New England species:
1. _C. Corallorhiza_ (Linnæus) Karst, 1753-1880-1883.
2. _C. odontorhiza_ (Willdenow) Nuttall, 1805-1818.
3. _C. Wisteriana_ Conrad, 1829.
4. _C. multiflora_ Nuttall, 1823.
1.—CORALLORHIZA CORALLORHIZA (Linnæus) Karst, 1753-1880-1883
EARLY CORAL-ROOT
The specific name, _Corallorhiza_, refers to the coral-like roots of the
species and genus.
Scapose rich woodland orchid, with coral-like roots. May 11th-June
28th-July 12th-August 5th (North) September-October (South). A vernal
orchid, North, and an autumnal species in Georgia. The dates of flowering
for the _Corallorhizas_ are variable and not standard.
=Flowers=, 3-12 in a raceme 1-3 inches long, dull purple, about ½ inch
long on short, minutely bracted pedicels. =Labellum= whitish, oblong,
2-toothed, shorter than petals, spur a small protuberance adnate to the
summit of ovary. =Sepals= and =petals= narrow. =Stem= or =scape=, 4-12
inches high. =Leaves= reduced to 2-5 sheathing scales. =Seed-capsule=
drooping.
_Continental Range_—from Greenland, and Kotzebue Sound, Unalaska,
southward throughout Canada to Georgia; westward to Washington and
Oregon. Ascends 7600 feet in Yellowstone Park, where it is rather common.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, frequent; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, common; Rhode Island, not reported; Connecticut,
infrequent.
2.—CORALLORHIZA ODONTORHIZA (Willdenow) Nuttall, 1805-1818
SMALL-FLOWERED CORAL-ROOT—DRAGON-CLAW—LATE CORAL-ROOT—CRAWLEY-ROOT
The specific name, _odontorhiza_, comes from the Greek, _odons_, a tooth,
and _rhiza_, a root, referring to the tooth-like shape of the coralloid
roots.
Small slender woodland orchid, with coral-like masses of roots.
February-March-May (South); July-August-September 6th-October 15th
(North).
=Flowers=, 6-20, purplish, in raceme 2-4 inches long. =Labellum= oval,
denticulate, narrowed at base; not notched, whitish; =spur= small, adnate
to top of ovary. =Sepals= and =petals= lanceolate, marked with purple
lines. =Stem= sheathed with 3-4 scales, 6-15 inches high. Confused with
_C. Corallorhiza_ northward.
_Continental Range_—From Ontario, Canada; Halifax, Nova Scotia, southward
to Alabama, Florida, and Texas; westward to Illinois and Indiana. Ascends
3000 feet in North Carolina.
_New England Range_—Maine, rare; New Hampshire, rare; Vermont, rare;
Massachusetts, Cole’s Grove, Williamstown (Cheney), rare; Rhode Island,
rare; Connecticut, frequent.
3.—CORALLORHIZA WISTERIANA Conrad, 1829[88]
WISTER’S CORAL-ROOT
The specific name, _Wisteriana_, refers to the dedication of this species
in honor of the botanist Wister.
Slender woodland orchid, with coral-branching roots. March 1st, Florida
(Curtiss); Alabama, February-May.
=Flowers= whitish, 6-15, in spiked raceme 2-5 inches long; pedicels,
erect and slender. =Labellum= broad and oval, white, clawed, with spots
of crimson; notched at apex, differing in this from _C. odontorhiza_,
which is not notched at the apex, but projects acutely; =spur= a
conspicuous protuberance adnate to top of the ovary. =Stem= 8-16 inches
high. =Leaves= reduced to several sheathing scales. =Seed-capsule= oblong
drooping, when ripe.
_Continental Range_—From Massachusetts southward to Florida and Texas;
westward to Ohio, taking much the same range, and flowering at the same
time as _C. odontorhiza_.
_New England Range_—Massachusetts, rare.
4.—CORALLORHIZA MULTIFLORA Nuttall, 1823
SPOTTED LARGE CORAL-ROOT
The specific name, _multiflora_, refers to the multiplying of both
flowers and plants in many stations.
Tall woodland orchid, with large masses of coralloid roots. May
(Canada)-June 20th-July (Maine); August 14th (Massachusetts); September
15th (Connecticut).
=Flowers=, 10-30, brownish-purple, in spiked raceme 2-8 inches long;
pedicels short; flowers ½-¾ inch long. =Labellum= white, spotted with
purple, oval deeply 3-lobed, central lobe broad; side lobes narrow, apex
curved. Spur manifest. =Sepals= and =petals= linear-lanceolate. =Stem=
2-20 inches high, purplish. =Leaves= reduced to several appressed scales.
=Seed-capsule= oblong, drooping when ripe.
_Continental Range_—From Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, southward to Florida;
westward to California. Ascends 2500 feet altitude in Montana (Tweedy).
_New England Range_—Maine, rare; New Hampshire, rare; Vermont, rare;
Massachusetts, frequent; Rhode Island, rare; Connecticut, frequent.
[Illustration: =The Coral-Root.= (_Corallorhiza._)]
XIII
Tipularia[89]
Nuttall, 1818
CRANE-FLY ORCHIS
The generic name, _Tipularia_, refers to the flowers resembling insects
of genus _Tipula_.
Slender scapose orchids, with solid bulbous roots; several bulbs,
or generations connected by offsets. =Anther= 1. =Labellum= 3-lobed
produced into a long spur backwardly. =Sepals= and =petals= similar,
spreading. =Flowers= in a long, loose terminal raceme. =Anther= terminal,
operculate, 2-celled. =Pollinia=, 4, 2 in each anther-sac, ovoid, waxy,
separate, affixed to short stipe, glandular at base. =Stem= 15-20 inches
high. =Leaf= 1, basal, arising in autumn, about September 14th, hyemal
after the flowering-scape has perished. =Seed-capsule= ½ inch long,
6-ribbed.
_Continental Range_—From Brattleboro and Bellows Falls, Vermont, to New
Jersey, Alabama, and Florida; westward to Ohio, Michigan, and Indiana.
Rare in sandy woods. There are but two known species reported for the
world, the following, and another, native of Asia, in the Himalayan
region. The American species is slightly distinguished from the Asiatic
form by the blunt tip of its labellum.
North American species north of Mexico 1
New England species 1
Hoosac Valley species 0
New England species:
1. _T. unifolia_ (Muhlenberg) B. S. P., 1813-1888.
1.—TIPULARIA UNIFOLIA (Muhlenberg) B. S. P., 1813-1888[90]
(_Tipularia discolor_, Nuttall, 1818)
CRANE-FLY ORCHIS
The specific name, _unifolia_, refers to the 1 leaf produced by this
orchid.
Alert, small moist sandy woodland or rocky hillside orchid, with solid
irregular bulb or corm-like roots. Late July-August-October.
=Flowers= green, tinged with purple, ⅓-¼ inch long, in a loose raceme,
5-10 inches long; pedicels filiform, bractless. =Labellum= 3-lobed,
central lobe narrow, prolonged, dilated at apex, side-lobes short and
triangular. =Spur= straight, slender, twice as long as sepals and petals,
giving an insectean poise to the dull flowers. =Sepals= and =petals=
narrow. =Stem= 15-20 inches high. =Leaf= 1, basal, reddish-purple,
strongly veined; arising from solid bulb, about September 14th, hyemal.
=Seed-capsule= ½ inch long, 6-ribbed.
_Continental Range_—From southern Vermont, New Hampshire, southward to
Florida and Alabama; westward to Michigan and Indiana. More abundant
South. Nowhere common.
_New England Range_—Vermont, rare; Massachusetts, rare.
XIV
Limodorum
Linnæus, 1753
(_Calopogon_ R. Brown, 1813)
GRASS-PINK—MEADOW-GIFT
The generic name, _Limodorum_, comes from the Greek, signifying a
meadow-gift.
Scapose orchids with solid bulbous roots. =Anther= 1. =Labellum=, hinged,
arching above, and spreading; raised on a narrow stalk, dilated at the
apex, bearded on the upper side with long club-shaped hairs. =Sepals=
and =petals= nearly alike, separate and spreading. =Flowers= fragrant,
pink-purple, 3-15 in a loose terminal raceme, seed-capsule (ovary)
straight. =Anther= terminal, operculate, and sessile. =Pollinia= 2, 1
in each anther-sac, loosely granular. =Stem= or =scape= straight, not
twisting as usual in other orchids, 1-1½ foot high. =Leaf= 1, grass-like
blade, appearing first season, and followed next year by scape of
flowers. =Seed-capsule= erect, oblong, and straight.
_Continental Range_—From Newfoundland, Canada, southward to Florida;
westward to Minnesota and Arkansas. There are 4 species of this beautiful
genus endemic only to the Atlantic region.
A peculiar character of this genus lies in the ovary and stem being
straight, causing thereby the labellum to arch above instead of drooping
below the organs of fertilization, as instanced in _Orchis_ and
_Cypripedium_. Seedlings appear numerous in many swamps.
North American species north of Mexico 4
New England species 1
Hoosac Valley species 1
New England species:
1. _L. tuberosum_ Linnæus, 1753.
(_Calopogon pulchellus_ R. Brown, 1813)
1.—LIMODORUM TUBEROSUM Linnæus, 1753
(_Calopogon pulchellus_ R. Brown, 1813)
GRASS-PINK—MEADOW-GIFT
The specific name, _tuberosum_, refers to the tuberous or bulbous roots
of this orchid.
Beautiful grassy sphagnous meadow orchid, with bulbous roots. May
15th-June 1st-July 20th-August 1st.
=Flowers=, 3-15 pink-purple, 1 inch long, subtended by acute bracts in
spiked raceme 4-15 inches long. =Labellum= hinged, arching above, owing
to ovary and stem being straight; broad, triangular at apex; bearded on
the upper side with yellow, orange, and rose-colored club-shaped hairs.
=Sepals= and =petals= acute, ovate-lanceolate, similar in texture and
color. =Stem= or =scape= 1-1½ feet high. =Leaf= 1, linear-lanceolate,
8-12 inches long, grass-like with several scales below. =Seed-capsule=
straight, erect, oblong.
_Continental Range_—From Newfoundland, Nova Scotia to the shores of Lake
Huron, southward throughout New England to Florida; westward to western
Texas and Minnesota.
_New England Range_—Maine, common; New Hampshire, common; Vermont,
common; Massachusetts, common; Rhode Island, common; Connecticut, common.
[Illustration: =The Grass-Pink.= (_Limodorum tuberosum._)
A beautiful grassy-leaved orchid found in company with the dainty Rose
Pogonia, and frequently with the rarer Arethusa in wild cranberry
marshes.]
XV
Aplectrum
Nuttall, 1818[91]
PUTTY-ROOT—ADAM-AND-EVE
The generic name, _Aplectrum_, comes from the Greek meaning without a
spur.
Scapose orchids with bulb or corm-like roots. =Anther= 1. =Labellum=
3-lobed, shorter than petals. =Sepals= and =petals= about ½ inch long.
=Flowers= without a spur, dull yellowish-brown in a loose raceme.
=Anther= borne a little below the summit of column. =Pollinia= 4,
lens-shaped. =Stem= or =scape= 1-2 feet high. =Leaf= 1, basal, arising
from side of scape; several corms adhering to latest bulb; leaf develops
in late autumn, about September 9th, hyemal; several sheathing scales
above. =Seed-capsule= oblong, ovoid, angled.
_Continental Range_—From Ontario, southward to Georgia and Alabama;
westward to Minnesota, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and probably in
northern California. Rather rare and local.
North American species north of Mexico 2
New England species 1
Hoosac Valley species 0
New England species:
1. _A. spicatum_ (Walter) B. S. P., 1788-1888.
1.—APLECTRUM SPICATUM (Walter) B. S. P., 1788-1888[92]
(_Aplectrum hyemale_ Nuttall, 1818)
PUTTY-ROOT—ADAM-AND-EVE[93]
The specific name, _spicatum_, refers to the flowers growing in a
_spica_, or spike.
Tall, spiked damp sandy woodland or bogland orchid, with bulbous or
corm-like roots. May 22d-July 1st (Northern States); April 20th-July 1st
(Southern States).
=Flowers=, 1-9 dull yellowish-brown, mixed with purple, 1 inch long,
short-pediceled, in a loose raceme 2-4 inches long. =Labellum=
shorter than petals, 3-lobed. =Sepals= and =petals= ½ inch long,
linear-lanceolate. =Stem= or =scape= 1-2 feet high, producing 3 scales
above the leaf. =Leaf= 1, basal, arising at side of scape, from the
latest bulb or corm; elliptic, 4-6 inches long, appearing about September
9th, hyemal—lasting through the winter.
_Continental Range_—From Ontario, southward to Georgia and Alabama;
westward to Minnesota, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and probably California.
This species, like those of _Corallorhiza_, is not a definite dated
flowering orchid; in the Virginian ravines it blooms as early as April
20th while in Wisconsin, and Missouri it blooms as late as July 1st. The
average date for New England is from May 22d-June 25th.
_New England Range_—Maine, rare; New Hampshire, rare; Vermont, rare;
Massachusetts, rare; Rhode Island, not reported; Connecticut, rare.
TABLE OF MEASUREMENTS.
ENGLISH METRIC.
1½ inch (1″) = 2 millimetres (mm.).
1 inch (1′) = 2.5 centimetres (cm.).
1 foot (1°) = 3 decimetres (dm.).
[Illustration: =Epiphytes, or Air Plants. A Corner in the Orchid House of
the Botanical Gardens of New York City.=]
FOOTNOTES
[1] Thoreau, _Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_, p. 244.
[2] Thoreau, “Walking,” _Excursions_, p. 252.
[3] Burroughs, _A Year in the Fields_.
[4] Milton, _Comus_.
[5] Whittier, _The Mayflowers_.
[6] Thoreau, _The Maine Woods_, p. 34.
[7] L. H. Bailey, Jr., _Talks Afield_, p. 128. 1885.
[8] Thoreau, “Walking,” _Excursions_, p. 252.
[9] Henry Baldwin, _Orchids of New England_, Plate 8, 1894.
[10] Henry Baldwin, _Orchids of New England_, p. 38, 1894.
[11] Henry Baldwin’s _Orchids of New England_, p. 37, 1884.
[12] Thomas Wentworth Higginson, _The Procession of the Flowers_, p. 47.
[13] Gray, _Fertilization of Orchids, in Sill. Journ. 1862-1863_.
[14] C. A. Crandall, _Plant World_, p. 6. Jan., 1900.
[15] Darwin, _Fertilization of Orchids_, p. 284. 1895.
[16] _Ibid._, p. 291.
[17] Darwin, _Fertilization of Orchids_, p. 292. 1895.
[18] _Ibid._
[19] Darwin, _Fertilization of Orchids_, pp. 285-286. 1895.
[20] Thomas Wentworth Higginson, _The Procession of the Flowers_, p. 17.
[21] John Richardson, M.D., _Bot. Appendix, Report of Franklin’s
Journey_, 2d ed., p. 34, 1823.
[22] Dr. F. Kurtz, _List of Alaskan Orchids_, Expedition 1882.
[23] A. W. Driggs, _Catalogue Plants of Connecticut_, p. 19. 1901.
[24] F. F. Le Moyne, _Garden and Forest_, 3: 1890.
[25] T. W. Higginson, _The Procession of the Flowers_, p. 21.
[26] Thoreau, _Summer_, p. 198.
[27] _Ibid._, p. 347.
[28] Thoreau, _Summer_, p. 347.
[29] Darwin, _Fertilization of Orchids_, p. 226. 1895.
[30] Thomas Meehan, _The Native Flowers and Ferns of the United States_,
p. 104. 2: 1878.
[31] Darwin, _Fertilization of Orchids_, p. 284. 1895.
[32] Dr. S. H. Scudder, _Proc. Soc. Nat. Hist. Boston_, 9: 1863.
[33] Thoreau, _Summer_, pp. 84-85. 1884.
[34] Dodoens, _History of Plants_, p. 156. 1578.
[35] Lyte’s translation of Dodoens’ _History of Plants_, pp. 161-162 (1
ed., 1578).
[36] Bryant, _The Gladness of Nature_.
[37] _Vacinium_ comes from _Baccinium_, and was derived from
_Baccæ_—Dodoens, _Hist. Pl._, 1578.
[38] Clipping from _The Transcript_, North Adams, Mass., Feb., 1900.
[39] F. H. Blodgett, _The Plant World_, p. 52, March, 1902.
[40] Dodoens, _History of Plants_, 1578.
[41] _Ibid._
[42] Milton, _Lycidas_.
[43] Milton, _L’Allegro_.
[44] _The Plant World_, July, 1900; February, 1901; September, 1902;
November, 1902.
[45] Dr. Rembert Dodoens, _History of Plants_, Lyte’s Trans., 1st ed., p.
119. 1578.
[46] Bryant, _To a Mosquito_.
[47] Hawthorne’s _American Notes_.
[48] Dodoens, _History of Plants_, p. 290. 1578.
[49] T. B. Aldrich, _Bluebells of New England_.
[50] Thoreau, _Maine Woods_, p. 300.
[51] Hawthorne, _American Notes_, September 9, 1838.
[52] Hawthorne, _Ethan Brand_.
[53] Thoreau, Tuesday, _Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_.
[54] Thoreau, Tuesday, _Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers_.
[55] Hawthorne, _American Notes_, August 31, 1838.
[56] Dr. T. F. Wolfe, _Literary Shrines_, 173, 1895.
[57] Hawthorne, _American Notes_, July 31, 1838.
[58] _Ibid._
[59] Hawthorne, _American Notes_, July 31, 1838.
[60] Burroughs, _Riverby_.
[61] Bryant, _The Painted Cup_.
[62] Thoreau, _Letters_. To Sophia Thoreau, May 22, 1843.
[63] Bryant, _To the Fringed Gentian_.
[64] Former generic designations, now antedated.
[65] Genera not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[66] Species not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although reported for
Connecticut.
[67] Nicholson’s _Ill. Dict. and Gard. Ency. Hort. Gard. Kew_, 1887.
[68] Species not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[69] Doubtfully reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[70] Doubtfully reported for Hoosac Valley region, but should be looked
for wherever _H. hyperborea_ grows.
[71] A. L. Andrews, _Rhodora_, 4:79-81, 1902.
[72] Doubtfully reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[73] A. L. Andrews, _Rhodora_, 4: 79-81, 1902.
[74] Species not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[75] Species not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[76] Species doubtfully reported for the Hoosac Valley region, although
native of Vermont.
[77] Species not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[78] Species doubtfully reported for Hoosac Valley region, although
native of Massachusetts.
[79] Species not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Massachusetts.
[80] Genus doubtfully reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native
of Vermont.
[81] Species not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[82] Species not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
northern New England.
[83] Species not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
northern New England.
[84] Genus not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[85] Salisbury, _Pard. Lond._, pl. 89. 1807.
[86] Henry Baldwin, _Orchids of New England_, 93. 1894.
[87] Species not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[88] Species not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Massachusetts.
[89] Genus not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[90] Species not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[91] Genera not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[92] Species not reported for Hoosac Valley region, although native of
Vermont.
[93] The common name, Putty-Root, arose from the putty-like consistency
of the adhesive substance of the old corms or bulbs; used to mend broken
china. The name Adam-and-Eve originated with the colored folk in Georgia
and Alabama. The bulbs are not disagreeable to eat if baked, and many
confess to be fond of them. The colored people in the South are said to
wear these bulbs as amulets, and attribute great favor to them in casting
lots. By separating the offsets, they designate them Adam-and-Eve, as the
rule may be, and placing them in a bowl of water decide their good or ill
fortune in obtaining work, or a lover, according as Adam or Eve “pops up.”
INDEX
A
_Abies balsamea_, origin of name, 118.
_See_ Balsam-Fir
=Achroanthes=, generic description, 272
=A. monophylla=, specific description, 273
=A. unifolia=, specific description, 273;
haunts of, 104, 108
_Acorus Calamus_, 25, 161
Adams, George, shanty of, 197
Æolian Glen, Bellows-Pipe, 217, 220;
harps of, 12, 153
Æolus, Mount (Dorset Mountains) (Vt.), of Taconic origin, 142
Agriculture, Department of (Washington, D. C.), 125
Ague Tree, 186
Aiton’s _Catalogue of Plants_, 37
Albinos of =Cypripedium acaule=, 147, 148;
of =Cypripedium reginæ=, 61, 137, 184
Alder, Speckled or Hoary, 23, 31
Allen, Grant, quoted, 53
_Allium_, 172
Alpine Blossoms of the Dome, 201
Amanita, 184
_Amelanchier Canadensis_, 119
Amidon’s Farm, 41, 174, 198;
woods of, 98;
pines of, 134, 135, 138
_Anaphalis margaritacea_, 237
_Andromeda_, 6
Anemones, 5, 171, 232
Anthony, Mount, Bennington (Vt.), 86, 97, 188, 204
_Antrostomus Carolinensis_, 205.
_See_ Chuck-Will’s-Widow
_Antrostomus vociferus_, 205.
_See_ Whippoorwill
=Aplectrum=, generic description, 283
=A. spicatum=, specific description, 284
_Aquilegia_, origin of name, 168, 169
_A. Canadensis_, 168
Arbor Vitæ, American, 118, 189
Arbutus, Trailing, 14, 24, 104, 121, 133, 187;
days for, 133, 139
_Arctostaphylos pungens_, 165.
_See_ Manzanita
_Arctomys monax_, 177.
_See_ Woodchuck’s home
=Arethusa=, generic description, 262
=A. bulbosa=, specific description, 262;
haunts of, 89, 90, 187
Arethusa’s Fountain or Spring, 31, 72, 88, 142
_Arisæma triphyllum_, 21, 160
_Arnica acaulis_, 235
Arrow-Head, 64
_Artemisia Absinthium_, 238
Arum, 160
_Asarum Canadense_, 179
_Asclepias tuberosa_, 234
Ashuilticook, South Branch, Hoosac River, 13, 112, 214, 223
_Asplenium_, 194, 195
_A. ebenoides_, 199
_A. platyneuron_, 199
_A. Ruta-Muraria_, 191
Atlantic Region of North America, 60, 131, 153
_Atragene Americana_, 140
August, month of, 105, 140, 165, 231, 237;
excursions, 7th, 224;
16th, 222
Aurora’s Bog, 6, 8, 17, 20, 49, 59;
hill of, 112, 133
Aurora’s Lake, 5, 14, 89, 114, 177
Autumn flowers (N. J.), 237;
Hoosac Valley, 237
Azalea, Pink, 31, 141, 157, 162, 168, 175, 176
_A. nudiflora_, 6
B
Bailey, L. H., Jr., quoted, 32
Bald Mountain (Mass.), 11
Baldwin, Henry, quoted, 40, 41, 42
Ball Brook, wanderings of, 15, 25, 27, 36, 55, 72, 75, 86, 141, 172,
179, 181, 202, 204
Ball Farm, 22, 75, 141, 146, 198
Balsam-Fir tree, 202;
resinous blisters of, 118, 202
Balsam-Weed, 237
Barber’s Mill, 31, 63, 87, 179
Bear Berry, 21
Bear Swamp, 208
Beaver Dam, last evidences of the, 229
Beaver, The, North Adams (Mass.), 224
Bedford Park (N. Y. City), 161
Beecher, Henry Ward, quoted, 201
Bellows-Pipe, Notch Valley, Hoosac Highlands, 212, 214, 216, 218, 220;
Indian’s legend of, 217, 218.
_See_ Notch Valley
Bennington (Vt.), 37, 204;
battle of, 11, 76;
county of, 15, 85, 86;
hill of, 27, 86, 201;
road to Boston (Mass.), from, 76;
rebellion of the Green Mountain Boys of, 97
Berkshire, northern (Mass.), 57, 121, 214;
“Beautiful Berkshire,” 5;
boglands of, 114;
highlands of, 133, 222;
natural features of, 225;
valleys of, 214
Bertram, a character of Hawthorne’s, 215
_Bicuculla Canadensis_, 131
_B. Cucullaria_, 131
_B. eximia_, 131
Birch Family, 149
Birch woods, 57, 138, 186
Bird’s-Foot Violet, origin of name of, 159
Birds, songs of, 130, 133, 202;
rare nests of, 154;
of the Dome, 210
Bitter-Buttons, 238
Blackberry bushes, 112, 211, 237
Black Spruce, Dwarf, 117
Bleeding Heart, 131
Blodgett, F. H., quoted on origin of Dog’s-Tooth Violet, 126
Bloodroot, 164
Bluebells of New England, 192, 195, 238
Blueberry, Dwarf Low, 117, 118, 119
Bluets, 4, 126, 232
Bobolink, notes of the, 95, 167;
nest of the, 96
Bonny, Old, 38
Boots, waterproof, 103, 113;
hob-nailed, 213
Boston (Mass.), 7, 47, 94
Botanizing outfit, 62
Boulders, 9, 112, 189, 199, 213, 227
Boxberry, 24
Brakes, 12, 20, 68, 103, 112, 163
Brattleboro (Vt.), 204
Briar-roses, 187, 236
Broad Brook, 197;
forks of, 76, 184, 185;
valley of, 184, 185, 210
Bronx Park (N. Y. City), 20, 158, 159, 167, 172
Brooklyn Bridge (N. Y. City), 231
Broom-Rape Family, 164
Bryant, William Cullen, quoted, 62, 95, 112, 115, 182, 214, 235, 238
Buckbean, 26, 67, 70, 180
Buckwheat Family, 84
Bull-frogs, 63, 182
Burlington (Vt.), 40, 41
Burroughs, John, quoted, 3, 17, 154, 233
Butter-and-Eggs, 235
Butterflies, 130
Butterfly Polypores, 153, 186
Butterfly-Weed, Orange, 234
Butternut Lane, 138
Butternut-trees, 74, 234
C
Cactus Family, 158
Calamint or _Calamintha_, 132
=Calceolus Marianus=, 58.
See _Cypripedium_
Calico-bush, 173, 184.
See _Kalmia_
=Calopogon=, former generic name for _Limodorum_, 90
_Caltha_, golden cups of, 141
=Calypso=, generic description, 275
=C. bulbosa=, specific description, 276
_Campanula_, origin of name, 195, 196
_C. rotundifolia_, 196
_Camptosorus rhizophyllus_, 4
Canaan Hills (N. H.), 190, 221
Canadensis Brook, haunts of Canada Violets, 172
Cancer-Root, 164
_Capillus-Veneris Adiantum_, 195
_Caprimulgidæ_, 205
Cardinal Flower, 105, 231, 233
_Carduus_, 238
Carmel, Mount (Conn.), 129, 130, 158
_Carpinus Caroliniana_, 149
Cary, Alice, quoted, 44, 83, 95
Cascade, the, Notch Valley Brook, 111, 113, 212, 213, 221
_Cassandra_, 6
_Castilleja coccinea_, 234
Catbirds, 181
Catskills, the, 140, 210, 220
Cat’s-Mint, 131, 132;
Catnip, origin of name, 132
Cat-tail Flag, 25, 113, 166
Cedars and Jumpers, 130, 161;
swamps of, 118
Centre-of-the-Town (Pownal, Vt.), 56;
road to the, 36, 41
Chalk Pond, region of, 56, 57, 177, 206;
soil of, 101;
brook of, 102;
orchids of, 137
Chandler’s =Cypripedium=, 37.
See _Cypripedium arietinum_
Charlotte (Vt.), 204
Checkerberries, 23
Cherries, wild red, 119;
trees, 144
Chestnut-trees, 101, 143, 186
Chickadees, 209
Children’s Day, 192
Chimaphila, 24
_Chordeiles Virginianus_, 205.
_See_ Hawk, Twilight
Christmas Ferns, 57
Chuck-Will’s-Widow, 205;
habits of, 176
_Claytonia Virginica_, 157
Clayton’s Fern, 163
Clematis, 171;
ancient vine of, 140;
seeds of, 140
Purple-Flowered, 139, 140
_C. Virginiana_, 140
Cliff-Brake, Purple-Stemmed, 191, 192, 200
_Clintonia_, 20, 187, 209;
hollow of, 205
_C. borealis_, 20, 35, 116
Club-Moss, 24, 182
Coal-Bed, or Chip-Bed, Domelet, 207, 210
Cockle-Burrs, 164
Cold Spring, Chalk Pond region, 98, 99, 102, 172, 177;
Putnam Swamp, Mosholu (N. Y.), 163
Colesville, Williamstown (Mass.), 197
Columbine, 130, 131, 165, 168-171;
origin of name, 169, 170
Common Polypody, 14
Concord (Mass.), 109
Connecticut, 3, 125, 187
Connecticut River, 190;
valley of, 221
Continental Divide, 43
_Coptis trifolia_, 19
=Corallorhiza=, generic description of, 278
=C. Corallorhiza=, specific description of, 278
=C. multiflora=, specific description of, 280
=C. odontorhiza=, specific description of, 279
=C. Wisteriana=, specific description of, 279
Cornel, Dwarf, 20
_Cornus Canadensis_, 21
Cowslip, American, 5, 129, 142
Cranberry Swamp, 62, 64, 70, 72, 86, 181
_Cratægus_, 13
Crowfoot Family, 5, 171
Cud-Weed, 237
Currants, wild black, 220
Crystal Lake, Orange Mountains (N. J.), 232, 233
Crystal Spring, Snuff Hollow, Notch Valley, 113, 212, 221
_Cynorchis_, 110
=Cypripedium=, 54, 72, 104, 109;
dates of flowering, 34, 138;
cross-fertilization and fertilization, 57, 58, 178;
origin of name, 58, 242;
seedlings, 77-79, 135;
culture of New England species, 80-82;
torsion of stem and labellum of, 92, 93;
organism, 108;
generic description, 242.
_See_ Lady’s Slipper _and_ Moccasin-Flower.
=C. acaule=, specific description, 246;
haunts, 5, 18, 56, 60, 67, 103, 116, 134, 172-174;
colony of two hundred plants, 78;
most common Cypripedium of New England, and possibly of North
America, 81;
culture, 82;
seed-capsule, 116
=C. arietinum=, specific description, 243;
haunts, 37, 42, 56, 61, 80, 98;
soil of, 100;
destroying worm, 135
=C. calceolus=, European Yellow Lady’s Slipper, 53, 58
=C. Californicum=, native of Pacific slope, 43
=C. candidum=, specific description, 244, 245;
haunts, 61, 184
=C. fasciculatum=, native of the northwestern Pacific slope, 43
=C. hirsutum=, specific description, 245;
haunts, 3, 57, 59, 60, 80;
most common Cypripedium of our continent, 81;
seedlings, 178
=C. Montanum=, the Fragrant White Lady’s Slipper of the Rocky
Mountain region, 243
=C. parviflorum=, specific designation, 246;
haunts, 18, 57, 60, 61, 80, 161;
seedlings, 161
=C. passerinum=, native of northwestern Pacific slope, 60
=C. reginæ=, specific description, 244;
haunts, 3, 19, 43, 55, 61, 68, 72, 184;
ancient colony, 77-79;
seedlings, 78, 81
D
Dale, T. Nelson, quoted, on ancient Hoosac Lake, 221
Darwin, Charles, quoted on _Orchidaceæ_—
fertilization of, 51, 108;
self-fertilization of, 51;
cross-fertilization of, 52, 53;
seeds of, 57;
extinction of, 92;
structure of, 93
“Dead holes,” 63, 68, 73, 88
Dead-Men’s Fingers, and Thumbs, 110.
See _Habenaria psycodes_, and _Habenaria grandiflora_
Deaf-Man’s Spring, 211
Decoration Day, 44, 61, 141
Deerfield, arch, 221;
river, 224;
valley, 224
Deer-Mice, 173
Deer Park, Mosholu (N. Y.), 161, 164
_Denticulus canis_, or _Dens caninus_, 127.
_See_ Dog’s-Tooth Lily
Devil’s Darning-Needles, 145
Devil’s Paint-Brush, 236
_Dioscorides_ (23-79, A.D.), quoted on origin of plant names, 126,
127, 140, 237;
fern names, 193
Dodoens (1578), quoted on origin of plant names, 58, 111, 120, 127,
132, 159, 168, 194, 195
Dog’s-Tooth Lily, 12, 20, 35, 126, 129, 157, 164;
origin of name of, 126-128.
_See_ Lily
Dogwood Blossoms, snowy, 5, 47, 121, 157, 173, 209
Dogwood, Poison, 35
Dome, the Majestic, Green Mountains (Vt.), 25, 27, 35, 66, 76, 86,
115, 172, 185, 188, 196, 203;
moonrise over, 95;
scenes from, 97;
ascent and summit, 118, 207, 209;
glaciated slopes of, 204;
flowers of, 208, 209;
in the path of a tornado on the, 210
Domelet, Pownal (Vt.), 59, 62, 76, 115, 116, 120, 175, 207, 211
Dorset Mountain (Mount Æolus), 142
Dragon-Flies, 145
Dragonworts, 160
Driggs, A. W., quoted, 61
_Drosera rotundifolia_, 32, 187
Dry Brook, 211
Dumb Watches, 32, 65.
_See_ Pitcher Plant
Dummy Farm, 116;
road, 116, 207
Dutchman’s-Breeches, 131, 157, 158
E
Eagle Rock, Orange Mountains (N. J.), 231, 234
East Road, Pownal (Vt.), 27, 34, 144
Eckhart, Faithful, of mythological origin, Germany, 14
Eddy Farm, Notch Valley, North Adams (Mass.), 216
Eel-Grass, 64, 69
Eggleston, W. W., Rutland (Vt.), quoted, 188, 191
Elder, Poison, 35
Elephant, fossil, discovered in Vermont, 204
Ellacomb, Rev. Mr., quoted on name of Dead-Men’s Thumbs, 110
Elm “turnovers,” 103
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, quoted, 55
_Epigæa repens_, 5, 24
Equinox, Mount, Manchester (Vt.), 86
Erosions, rock, 9, 57, 189, 221-223, 226.
_See_ Pot-hole erosions
_Erythronium Americanum_, 20, 126, 128, 129;
origin of name of, 126
Etchowog, Bogs of, 3, 15, 16, 22, 27, 35, 39, 42, 47, 86, 88, 108,
141, 176, 178, 238;
origin of name of, 63;
haunts of mosquito, 182
Ethan Brand, a character of Hawthorne’s, 215;
short story of, quoted, 216
Eustace Bright, a character of Hawthorne’s, 214
Everlasting, the, 237
F
False Lily-of-the-Valley, 20
Fence, barbed wire, 143
Fence-boards serve a purpose, 73
Fern Family, seeds of, 151, 194
Sweet Fern, 112;
Oak Fern, 162, 194;
Grape Fern, 199.
_See_ Spleenwort
Ferns, lichens, and mosses, origin of names of, 193
=Fertilization= and cross-fertilization, the story of, 48, 49;
_Orchis spectabilis_, 107;
_Habenaria Hookeriana_, 177, 178;
_Cypripedium hirsutum_, by a snail, 178.
_See_ Darwin
Field Brook, White Oaks, 183
Figwort Family, 234, 235
Flag’s Meadows, North Adams (Mass.), 112
Fleur-de-lis, 23, 35, 65, 67, 83, 168.
See _Iris_
Floating-Heart, 180
Forbidden Mountain, the, 218.
_See_ Hoosac Mountain
Forest, buried, 103
Forget-me-nots, 130
Fort Massachusetts, the early border, North Adams (Mass.), 11, 97
Foxes Fire-Eyes, 186
Franktown (Nev.), 165
French cadets, 97
Frog’s-Bit, 64
Fumaria, 131
G
Garlic, Wild, 158
_Gaultheria_, 6, 14, 23, 24, 171, 187
_Gaylussacia dumosa_, 117
_Gemmingia Chinensis_, 161
Gentian, Blue-Fringed, 26, 166, 180, 187, 238;
origin of name of, 180
_Gentiana crinita_, 166, 238;
Bryant’s verse to, 238
Geological surveys, northern Massachusetts, 9
_Geranium columbinum_, 169
_Gerardia_, 234-236
Giant, The, Mount Carmel (Conn.), 129, 130, 158
Ginger-Root, 164, 179, 220
Glacial Age, 8, 9, 185, 189;
hills of the, 86, 142, 204, 221;
ancient lake beds of, 203, 221.
_See_ Erosions, Pot-holes, _and_ Boulders
Glebe or Church land, by law established, Pownal (Vt.), 188, 198-200,
204
Glen of Comus, District Fourteen, 21, 25, 36, 44, 55, 72, 133, 137,
141, 147, 149, 152, 178
_Gnaphalium decurrens_, 237
Goatsucker Family, 215
Goddess of Liberty (N. Y. City), 231
Golden Arnica, 236
Golden Chestnut of Nevada, 165
Golden Gate of Hoosac Valley, 96
Golden-Ragwort, 162
Golden-Rod, 121, 237
Goldthread, 19, 41, 134, 171, 187, 209
Gould Farm, base of Greylock, Adams (Mass.), 223
Granite rocks, “mutton-backed,” 158
Grape-vines, wild, 103, 164, 181
Grass-of-Parnassus, 237
=Grass Pink=, haunts of, 47, 63, 70, 87, 90, 91, 120, 282;
fragrance and color of, 91.
_See_ _Limodorum tuberosum_, or Meadow-Gift
Gray, Dr. Asa, quoted on beauty of Fringed Habenarias, 105
Great Spirit, anger of the, 218
“Great Vermonter,” boulder of the, 9
Green, Esq., Edward, cabin of, 144
Greenfield (Mass.), 7
Green Mountains, 27, 46, 47, 186
Green Mountain Boys, 97
Green River, Williamstown (Mass.), view of, 120
Gregor Rocks, North Pownal (Vt.), 183;
rare ferns of, 188, 191, 192, 194, 213;
bluebells of, 192, 196;
legend of, 192, 193;
natural dam of, 204
Greylock, Mount (Mass.), name of, 10, 212;
height of, 10;
observatory on, 10, 219;
Heart of, 11;
clouds upon, 97, 129;
brotherhood of, 210, 213;
road to summit of, 213, 214;
Hawthorne’s description of, 215;
Thoreau’s ascent of, 216, 218;
trees of, 217;
view from, 220;
geological and glacial observations of, 221, 223;
landslide on south brow of, 222;
stone stairs on, 223
Griffin, President, of Williams College (Mass.), 10, 219
Ground-pigs, 177
Ground-Pine, 24, 194
Grouse, hiding of the young of, 175
Gulf Road, Pownal Centre (Vt.), 16, 56, 98, 139, 198
=Gyrostachys=, generic description, 263;
haunts of, 109, 166, 238.
_See_ Ladies’ Tresses
=G. cernua=, specific description, 265
=G. gracilis=, specific description, 266
=G. ochroleuca=, specific description, 265
=G. plantaginea=, specific description, 264
=G. Romanzoffiana=, specific description, 264
H
=Habenaria=, generic description of, 249;
self-fertile species of, 49;
origin of name, 49, 56;
haunts of, 104, 106, 108, 110, 166;
oldest orchises in literature, 109;
mentioned by Thoreau, 109.
_See_ =Orchis=, common names of
=H. Andrewseii=, specific description, 258
=H. blephariglottis=, specific description, 256
=H. bracteata=, specific description, 254
=H. ciliaris=, specific description of, 255;
haunts of, 105
=H. clavellata=, specific description, 254;
self-fertilized, 49
=H. dilatata=, specific description, 252;
haunts of, 51, 56, 73, 181, 220;
perfume of, 73;
fertilization of, 73
=H. flava=, specific description, 255.
_See_ Tubercled Orchis
=H. fragrans=, specific description, 253
=H. grandiflora=, specific description, 257;
haunts of, 29, 102, 104, 109
=H. holopetala=, specific description, 256
=H. Hookeriana=, specific description, 250;
haunts of, 101, 104, 141, 171, 178
=H. hyperborea=, specific description, 251;
fertilization of, 49-51;
haunts of, 50, 56
=H. lacera=, specific description, 257
=H. media=, specific description, 252
=H. oblongifolia=, specific description, 250
=H. obtusata=, specific description, 251
=H. orbiculata=, specific description, 250;
haunts of, 101, 104, 109, 120
=H. psycodes=, specific description of, 258;
haunts of, 70, 72, 109
Hailstorms, 72, 74, 85, 117
Haines, Daniel, a character of Hawthorne’s, 215
Hartford (Conn.), 3
Hawk, Twilight, habits of, 206;
or, Bull-Bat, 205
Hawkweed, Orange, 236
Hawthorne, N., _American Notes_ quoted, 10, 192, 193, 214, 215, 222,
225, 226;
route to Greylock (Mass.), through the Notch, 213;
visits to Limekilns, North Adams (Mass.), 214;
visit to Deerfield Arch, 222;
visits to Natural Bridge, Hudson Brook, 225, 228
Haystack Mountain (Vt.), 185, 210
Hazen, Mount, Williamstown (Mass.), 186, 196
Heal-All, 102
Heart’s-Ease, 159
Heath Family, 6
Hellas, Mountains of, 97
Hellebore, American, 5, 6, 20, 28, 47
Hemlock Brook, 188;
woods of, Notch Brook, 113;
glen of, 193
_Hepatica_, 171, 194
_Herbe de Chat_, the cat’s heal-all, 132, 133
Herkimer (N. Y.), 80
_Hieracium aurantiacum_, 236
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, quoted, 47, 59, 89
Hitchcock, President, Amherst (Mass.), 9
Honeysuckles, origin of name of, 170
Hoosac Falls (N. Y.), plains of, 98
Hoosac, Highlands, 4, 5, 8, 165, 214, 232;
ancient lake of the, 8, 12, 22, 222;
flowers in bloom each month of the year in, 121;
Lowlands, 207;
tornado in, 210;
Indians’ hunting-ground in the, 218;
depths of lake 10,000 years ago, 221
Hoosac Mountain, 5, 79, 212, 221
Hoosac River, source of, 6, 7, 18, 98, 188;
South Branch of, 13;
narrow pass of, 96;
view of the, 120;
North Branch of, 224;
peaceful waters of, 238.
_See_ Ashuilticook River _and_ Mayunsook River
Hoosac Tunnel, completion of (1875), 7;
western gate of, 12;
cliffs of, 13;
passing of trains through, 13, 224;
eastern portal of, 222
Hoosac Valley, 6, 8, 115, 118, 185, 202, 213, 233;
narrowest portion of, likened to the Pass of Thermopylæ of Greece,
96;
wars of the, 96;
morning mist of, 97;
view of, from the Domelet, 120;
roads of, 139;
Revolutionary days in, 200;
region of, described by Henry Ward Beecher, 201
Hopkins, Professor Albert, first nature-student afield (1833), 11;
erected first astronomical observatory in U. S. (1838), 228
Hopper, The, a portion of Greylock Mountain, 11
Hornbeam, American, 149
_Houstonia cærulea_, 126
Howling Swamp, 204;
wilderness of, 203
Huckleberry, 5, 186;
dwarf, 117;
venders of, 117;
high, 118, 202
Hudson Brook, North Adams (Mass.), 224, 229;
origin of name of, 225;
Hawthorne’s description of, 225, 227
Hudson River, 7;
valley of, 221, 204
I
Iasione, 195
Ice Age, 9, 57, 115
_Illustrated Flora of Northeastern North America_, 128
Indian Corn, 88, 168
Indian Cucumber, 20, 162, 163
Indian Fig, 158
Indian Pipe, 164, 233
Indian Poke, 5, 20, 47, 68, 142, 164
Indian Turnip, 21, 160, 172
Indian’s Paint-Brush, 235
Indians, 7, 47, 97;
Algonquin, 59
Innocence, 126
_Ipecacuanha, American_, 47
Iris, 143, 176
Iris Swamp, 142, 198
Iron-Wood trees, 149, 150
Itch-Weed, 5, 63
Ivy, Poison, 18, 35, 131
J
Jack-in-the-Pulpit, 21, 157, 160, 162;
origin of name of, 160
Jays, Blue, 149, 150, 154, 181;
birdlings, 154
Jepson Farm, 211
Jerome Avenue (N. Y. City), 161
Jersey cows, 87
“Joe,” little boy, a character of Hawthorne’s, 215
Joe Larabee path, over the Domelet, 207
John-Fallow, pastures of the, 99, 138
Judge’s Cave, or granite boulder, summit of West Rock, New Haven
(Conn.), 130
_Juglans cinerea_, 74
July, month of, 98, 109, 140;
excursions:
5th, 188;
7th, 90;
8th, 111;
5th-19th, 196;
17th, 115;
18th, 198;
19th, 201;
22d, 212
June, month of, 134, 142, 165;
excursions:
5th, 141;
6th, 57, 167;
8th, 55, 79, 82;
9th, 187;
10th, 56, 147;
14th, 62, 75;
15th, 82, 179;
16th, 183;
18th, 185;
19th, 75;
20th, 68, 70, 82, 187;
21st, 72, 74, 186, 190;
25th, 57;
26th, 83, 145;
30th, 84
K
_Kalmia_, 6, 173, 184, 218
Kimball Bogs, 27, 72, 142;
farm, 28, 36
Kurtz, Dr. F., Arctic Expedition of, 60
L
Labrador Tea, 6, 187
Ladd Brook, 15
=Lady’s Slipper=, generic description, 242;
origin and history of name, 58, 242.
_See_ Moccasin-Flower and _Cypripedium_
=European Yellow Lady’s Slipper=, first species designated under
genus _Cypripedium_ (1740-1753), 53, 242.
See _Cypripedium calceolus_ and _Calceolus Marianus_
=Fragrant White Lady’s Slipper=, mention of, 243.
See _C. Montanum_
=Large Yellow= or =Downy Yellow Lady’s Slipper=, specific
description, 245.
See _C. hirsutum_
=Ram’s-Head Lady’s Slipper=, specific description, 42, 243;
origin of name, 37;
haunts, 39, 40, 41, 43, 80, 99, 100, 103, 104, 167, 174, 206;
rarest orchid of North America, 60, 81;
Witch Hollow colony, 95, 99, 100;
musk-like fragrance of roots, 134;
destruction of, by worms, 135, 138.
See _C. arietinum_
=Small White= or =Prairie Lady’s Slipper=, specific description,
244.
See _C. candidum_
=Small Yellow= or =Fragrant Yellow Lady’s Slipper=, specific
description, 246;
dates of flowering, 3, 18.
See _C. parviflorum_
=Two-Leaved= or =Stemless Pink Lady’s Slipper=, specific
description, 246;
albinos of, 147, 148, 175;
range northward and southward, 247.
See _C. acaule_
=White Petaled= or =Showy Lady’s Slipper=, specific description,
244;
haunts, 3, 6, 35, 55, 77, 78, 86, 148, 185, 207, 211;
dates of flowering, 3, 19, 26, 79;
cultivation, 3, 80, 81;
albinos, 61, 137, 184;
seedlings, 77, 78, 81;
ancient colony, 78.
See _C. reginæ_
Lady’s-Thumb, 145
=Ladies’ Tresses=, generic description, 263;
haunts, 109, 166, 237.
See _Gyrostachys_
=Early Broad-Leaved Ladies’ Tresses=, specific description, 264
=Hooded Ladies’ Tresses=, specific description, 264
=Little Simple Ladies’ Tresses=, specific description, 266
=Nodding Ladies’ Tresses=, specific description, 265
=Slender Ladies’ Tresses=, specific description, 266
=Yellow Ladies’ Tresses=, specific description, 265
Lake of Dawn, 12.
_See_ Aurora’s Lake
Lake Whitney, New Haven (Conn.), 130, 131
Lambkill, 6, 173, 187
Lansingburg (N. Y.), 7
Laurel, American Mountain, 6, 173, 184, 218
Le Moyne, F. F., quoted on seedlings of _C. reginæ_, 81
Leopard’s-Bane, 235
Leopard-Flower, 161
=Leptorchis=, generic description, 274.
_See_ Twayblade, Lily-Leaved
=L. liliifolia=, specific description, 274;
haunts, 109, 162
=L. Loeselii=, specific description, 275
Lichens, origin of names of, 194
Lily Family, 158;
leaves of species of, 126;
bulbs of, 128
Blackberry Lily, 161
Dog’s-Tooth Lily, 12;
origin of name, 127, 128.
See _Erythronium Americanum_
_Lilium Philadelphicum_, 210
Wild Lily or Yellow Clintonia, 116, 117
Wildwood Lily, 210
Yellow Pond Lily, 69, 144;
origin of name, 83
Lily-of-the-Valley Family, 162, 176
Liparis, Lily-Leaved, 162.
See _Leptorchis liliifolia_
Limekilns, North Adams (Mass.), 13, 214
Limestone ridges, Pownal (Vt.), 198
=Limodorum=, generic description, 282;
comrade species of, 62, 85;
haunts, 88, 90, 178, 181, 202;
origin of name, 91, 282.
_See_ Grass Pink, or Meadow-Gift
=L. tuberosum=, specific description, 282;
haunts, 47, 83, 87, 89, 90, 91;
structure of, 91, 92
_Limnanthemum lancunosum_, 180
Linnæus, quoted on origin of plant names, 58, 126
_Liriodendron Tulipifera_, 234
=Listera=, generic description, 267
=L. auriculata=, specific description, 268
=L. convallarioides=, specific description, 268
=L. cordata=, specific description, 269
Llewellyn Park, Orange Mountains (N. J.), 234
Lloyd Spring, Mount Œta (Vt.), 234
_Lobelia_, 187, 235, 236
_L. cardinalis_, 233
_L. spicata_, 236
_L. syphilitica_, 236
Logger’s Depot, 208
=Long Purples=, 110.
_See_ Purple-Fringed Orchises, genus _Habenaria_
Lorenna, a little flower hunter, 36-38, 40, 41, 98
Lowerre (N. Y.), swamps and hills of, 157, 158, 164, 234
_Lycopodium_, 194;
origin of name, 182
_L. obscurum_, 182
_L. Selago_, 182
Lyte, Henry, translations of Dodoens’ _History of Plants_ (1578),
quoted, 110, 111, 195
M
Magnolia Family, 233
_M. Virginiana_, 235;
or Sweet Bay, 235
Maiden-Hair Ferns, 12, 57, 70, 194, 199, 232;
Spleenwort, 161, 212
Mail-coach, first, in Hoosac Valley, 7
Major, a valued hound, 62, 100;
as a good comrade, 15, 19, 46, 67, 72, 99, 146, 150, 211
Manhattan Island (N. Y. City), 158
Mann Mountain, Pownal (Vt.), 98
Manzanita, an evergreen shrub of Nevada, 165
Marathon, Plains of, 97
Marbledale (Conn.), 235
Marble Quarry, North Adams (Mass.), 225, 228, 229
Marl, formation of, 101
Marsh Buttercups, 5
Marsh Marigolds, 4, 18, 129, 141, 162, 171, 187
Marvel’s, Ik, home, New Haven (Conn.), 130
Mary or Marianus, “Our Lady the Virgin Mary,” 58, 59
Mason, Elijah, Farm, 201
Massachusetts, 3, 91;
highest land, 10;
border fort, 11;
State line, 96;
coast and highlands, 105
Mayflowers, 24.
_See_ Arbutus
May, month of, 126;
charm of, 133, 134;
showers of, 137;
excursions:
1st, 125, 153;
2d, 133;
7th-15th, 133;
14th, 3;
15th, 133, 134, 157, 165;
18th, 167;
19th, 104, 188;
20th, 138;
23d, 139;
25th, 56, 57;
29th, 141;
30th, 55
Mayunsook River, North Branch of Hoosac River, 224;
valley of, 222, 224, 229
McLean’s Woods (N. Y. City), swamp of, 162
=Meadow-Gift=, 91.
_See_ Grass Pink, or _Limodorum_
Meadow-Rue, 171
Meadows, wild, 56, 67, 137, 180, 181;
paths of moles and rats in, 65, 66
_Medeola Virginiana_, 20, 162;
origin of name of, 162
Meehan, Thomas, quoted, 93
_Mentha_, 132
_Menyanthes trifoliata_, 26, 67, 180.
_See_ Buckbean
Meriden (Conn.), 129
Merrimack River, 190
Merwin, a little guardsman of the swamps, 70;
home of, 70, 87;
mother of, 73-75, 88
Meyers’ sugar kitchen, 89, 187;
road, 86
Milkweed Family, 234
Milton, John, quoted, 21, 141, 149, 153
Minister and School Lots, 198
Mints, ancient name of, 132
_Mitchella repens_, 24
=Moccasin-Flower=, generic description of, 242;
haunts of, 5, 8, 26, 36, 40, 44, 48, 49, 141, 203;
origin of name of, 59;
seedlings of, 77.
_See_ Lady’s Slipper and _Cypripedium_
=Large Yellow= or =Downy Moccasin-Flower=, specific description,
245;
haunts, 56, 57, 60, 62, 134, 152, 168, 173, 184;
most generally distributed species, 60.
See _C. hirsutum_
=Ram’s-Head Moccasin-Flower=, specific description, 243;
history, 98.
See _C. arietinum_
=Small White= or =Prairie Moccasin-Flower=, specific description,
244;
haunts, 61, 184, 245.
See _C. candidum_
=Small Yellow= or =Fragrant Yellow Moccasin-Flower=, specific
description, 246;
haunts, 57, 59, 60, 159;
rare species in New England, 60;
fragrance, 159, 178;
seedlings in McLean’s Woods (N. Y. City), 163.
See _C. parviflorum_
=Two-Leaved= or =Pink Moccasin-Flower=, specific description, 246;
haunts, 33, 36, 44, 67, 103, 104, 116, 120, 134, 141, 147, 174,
175, 206;
colony of two hundred plants, 78, 141, 147;
most common species in New England, 81;
albinos, 147, 148, 175;
evident evolution, 148.
See _C. acaule_
=White Petaled, Showy=, or =Queen of the Indian Moccasin-Flowers=,
specific description, 244;
haunts, 55, 68, 71, 72, 75, 142, 152, 172, 184;
albinos, 61, 137, 184;
as decoration for church chancel during Williams College
Commencement, 70;
testing a frozen sod, 82.
See _C. reginæ_
_Moneses uniflora_, 24
Monkshood, 171
_Monotropaceæ_, 165
_Monotropa uniflora_, 164.
_See_ Indian Pipe
Montclair (N. J.), 131
Montpelier (Vt.), 6
Monumental Rock, Mosholu (N. Y.), glacial erosions on, 165;
rock pinks growing on, 166
Mosholu (N. Y.), 60, 158, 160, 163, 166, 172, 188, 234;
swamps and hills of, 157, 158, 165
Mount Vernon (N. Y.), woods of, 131, 163, 173, 184
Mountains, Nature’s retreats, 238
Mullens, St. Peter’s, 238
Müller, Professor, quoted, 77
Mushrooms, poisonous, 183, 184
Mustard Family, 162;
white species, 162
N
Names of plants, Roman, or Latin, 128
Nardus rustica, 179
Natural Bridge, North Adams (Mass.), 222, 224;
Hawthorne’s description of, 225, 226;
paths to, 225;
deepest pool or pot-hole, 226;
formation of arch of, 226-229;
rainbows, 227
Nature, man’s triumph over, 8;
solitudes of, 64, 65, 203;
weeping of, 137;
pristine condition of, 144;
tragedies of, 173
Nature Study, 48;
classrooms for, 139
_Nepeta Cataria_, 132
Newark (N. J.), 231
New Bedford (Mass.), 80
New England, 24, 40, 42, 57, 106, 187;
Orchids of, 239
New Jersey, Orange Mountains and Salt Meadows, 231
New Hampshire Grants, 198
New Haven (Conn.), 3, 80, 105, 108, 120, 125, 131, 235;
old canal to, 130
New York City (N. Y.), 3, 5, 125, 158, 161, 167, 187, 190, 234
Nigger Hill, White Oaks, 196
Nightshade, Deadly, 217
None-so-Pretty, 237
North Adams (Mass.), 5, 6, 7, 18, 39, 40, 49, 57, 133, 192, 197, 212,
215, 222, 224;
Seal of the City of, 7
North Corners (North Pownal, Vt.), 192
Northern Gap, showing the hills of Bennington County, from Mount Œta,
Pownal (Vt.), 86
Northfield Road, Orange Mountains (N. J.), 234, 235
North Pownal (Vt.), 188, 192, 235
Notch Brook, 111, 113
Notch Road, 213;
view from, 214;
roarings of, 217, 218;
Hawthorne’s walks through the Notch, 218;
Thoreau’s comparison of the Notch vales with those of Staten Island
(N. Y.), 218;
formation of the Notch, 221
Notch Valley, North Adams (Mass.), 111-113, 212, 217
_Nymphæa_, 83;
origin of name of, 83;
flapping pads of, 145;
_N. advena_, 69, 144
Nymphs, wood, 152
O
Oak Hill, White Oaks (Mass.), 196;
Pownal (Vt.), 141
October, month of, 180, 238
Œta, Mount, Pownal (Vt.), 3, 11, 38-40, 62, 80, 85, 89, 95, 120,
139, 188, 193, 207, 210, 212, 238;
summit of, crowned with farms, 97;
a foothill of the Dome, 96
_Ophioglossum vulgatum_, 129
_Opuntia Opuntia_, 158
Orange Mountains (N. J.), 131, 165, 231, 233-235;
solitudes of, 232
=Orchidaceæ=, haunts of, 118, 238;
tropical, 136;
botanical description of, 241;
New England species of, 241, 242;
origin of name, 109;
North American species of, 241
=Orchid Family=, 17, 45, 106, 133, 166, 187;
roots of, 46, 110;
extinction of, 48, 53, 71, 136;
self-fertilization of, 52, 77;
venders of, 53;
seedlings of, 77, 136;
torsion of seed-capsule of, 80, 92, 93;
cultivation of native species, 82;
straight seed-capsule of, 92;
pigmy of the, 105;
insect agency in fertilization of, 108;
species in literature, 109-111;
origin of name Orchis, 109;
germination of seeds of, 135, 136;
craze over, in culture, 136;
botanical description of, 241;
genera of New England, 242
=Orchis=, generic description of, 247;
species, 106;
high organism, 106;
differences between _Orchis_ and _Cypripedium_, 108;
origin of name of, 109;
oldest species of the family known in literature, 109-111
=O. aristata=, endemic to Alaska, 106
=O. mascula=, native of England, and resembles _O. spectabilis_ of
New England, 106
=O. morio=, native of Europe, and resembles _Habenaria psycodes_
and _Habenaria grandiflora_, of New England, 110.
See common names of _Orchis_
=O. rotundifolia=, specific description of, 248;
rare, 106
=O. spectabilis=, specific description of, 248;
common species, 56, 104, 106, 107, 138, 161, 188
=Orchis=, common names of _Orchis_, and _Habenaria_
=Andrews’ Rose-Purple Orchis.=
See _H. Andrewseii_, 258
=Crane-Fly Orchis.=
See _Tipularia unifolia_, 281
=Cream-Fringed Orchis.=
See _H. holopetala_, 256
=Intermediate Bog-Orchis.=
See _H. media_, 252
=Large Purple-Fringed Orchis.=
See _H. grandiflora_, 257;
history of, 29, 79, 84, 104, 105, 110;
haunts, 111, 113, 114
=Large Round-Leaved Orchis.=
See _H. orbiculata_, 250;
haunts, 101, 102, 104, 120, 172, 205
=Long Bracted Orchis.=
See _H. bracteata_, 254
=Ragged-Fringed Green Orchis.=
See _H. lacera_, 257;
haunts, 220
=Rein=, or =Naked Gland Orchis=.
See _Habenaria_, 249
=Showy Orchis.=
See _O. spectabilis_, 248;
haunts, 56, 57, 104, 164, 167, 168
=Showy= or =Covered Gland Orchis=.
See _Orchis_, 247
=Small Oblong-Leaved Orchis.=
See _H. oblongifolia_
=Small Purple-Fringed Orchis.=
See _H. psycodes_, 258;
haunts, 70, 83, 102, 111, 178
=Small Round-Leaved Orchis.=
See _H. Hookeriana_, 250;
haunts, 101, 104, 141, 171, 177, 187, 205-207
=Small Round-Leaved Showy Orchis.=
See _O. rotundifolia_, 248
=Small Yellow Bog-Orchis.=
See _H. clavellata_, 254
=Sub-Alpine Green Orchis.=
See _H. obtusata_, 251
=Tall Leafy Green Orchis.=
See _H. hyperborea_, 251
=Tall White Northern Bog-Orchis.=
See _H. dilatata_, 252;
haunts, 73, 181
=Tubercled Orchis.=
See _H. flava_, 255
=White-Fringed Orchis.=
See _H. blephariglottis_, 256;
haunts, 105, 220
=Yellow-Fringed Orchis.=
See _H. ciliaris_, 255;
haunts, 105
Orioles, 130, 167
_Osmunda_, 130, 167
_O. regalis_, 12
Oven-Bird’s nest, 153, 154
P
_Pæonia_, origin of name, 169
Painted Cup, 234, 235
Palisades, Hudson Valley, 166
=Palma Christi=, 110.
_See_ Purple-Fringed Orchises or _Habenaria_
_Pances_, 159
_Pardanthus_, 161
_Parnassia Caroliniana_, 237
Parnassus, Mount, Greece, 237
Parsons, Abraham, 196;
locally called, Abe-the-Bunter, 197
Partridge, habits of, 174, 175;
young partridges, 174
Partridge-berry, 24
Patterson’s Meadows, 168
Pearly-Everlasting, 237
Pear, Prickly, 158
Peat, formation of, 101
Peckham’s Hollow, 188
_Pedicularis Canadensis_, 165
_Pellæa atropurpurea_, 191
Pennyroyal, 132, 199;
as a drug, 132
Pent Road, Snuff Hollow, Notch Valley, 213
Pep or Catnip, 132
=Peramium=, generic description, 269.
_See_ Rattlesnake Plantain
=P. Menziesii=, specific description, 271
=P. ophioides=, specific description, 272
=P. pubescens=, specific description, 270
=P. repens=, specific description, 270
Perch Pond (Vt.), 69.
_See_ Pownal Pond
Perkins’ Hill, 188
_Pes Aquilegia_, origin of name, 168
_Pes Columbinus_, origin of name, 169
Petersburgh Hills, 203
_Phegopteris hexagonoptera_, 160
_P. Dryopteris_, 160
_Phlox subulata_, 157.
_See_ Rock Pinks
Pickerel-Weed, 64
Pied de Pigeon, 169
Pigeon Cherry Blossoms, 119
Pine Grove, Pownal Pond, 143;
trees, 87, 141, 165;
rest beneath, 146
_Pinus resinosa_, 117
_P. rigida_, 186
_P. divaricata_, 117
_P. Mariana_, 117
Pinxter-Flower, 232
Pipsissewa, 24
Pitcher Plant, haunts, 32, 33, 35, 65, 67, 69, 105, 142, 181
Pittsfield (Mass.), stages to, 198
Plains, Huckleberry, 115
_Plant World, the_, cited, 126, 169
Platt, “a friend of mine,” a character of Hawthorne’s, 218, 219
Pleasant Valley, Orange Mountains (N. J.), 234
Pleurisy-Root, 234
Pliny, orchises known to, 109;
_Natural History_ quoted, 240
Plymouth (Mass.), 24
Poe Cottage, Bedford Park (N. Y. City), 161
=Pogonia=, generic description, 259;
haunts, 62, 63, 70, 73, 83, 85, 88, 125, 178, 181, 202;
delicate, 89;
origin of name, 90, 259;
New England species, 259.
_See_ Sweet Pogonias
=P. affinis=, specific description, 261;
origin of name, 261
=P. ophioglossoides=, specific description, 260;
origin of name, 90, 260;
flowers, 90, 94;
fragrance, 90;
roots, 91;
fertilization, 94.
_See_ Snake-Mouth _Pogonia_
=P. trianthophora=, specific description, 260;
origin of name, 260;
range, 260
=P. verticillata=, 187;
specific description, 261;
origin of name, 261
Point of Rocks, Mosholu, and Lowerre (N. Y.), 161, 164, 165
Pollen and Pollinia of Orchids, 93
Pollywogs, or tadpoles, 63, 69, 144
_Polygonum amphibium_, 84, 143;
name of, 84;
genus, 144, 145
_Polypodium vulgare_, 14
Polypody Ferns, 194, 212
Polypores, haunts, 149-152, 186;
structure, 151;
seeds or spores, 151;
origin of name, 151
Poppy Family, 164
Pot-hole erosions, origin, 189, 190, 220, 221;
formation of Wash-Tub Brook, 189;
ancient revolving stone, Bronx Park (N. Y. City), 190;
Deerfield Arch, 222;
Natural Bridge Chasm, 226.
_See_ Erosions _and_ Natural Bridge
Pownal (Vt.), District Thirteen, 63
Pownal (Vt.), District Fourteen, 15, 16, 25, 36, 39, 44, 57, 139, 171;
schoolhouse in, 62, 75, 89
Pownal, Bennington County (Vt.), only town of the State through which
the Hoosac River flows, 63, 116, 121, 133, 135, 188, 193, 213,
220, 236;
Oak Hill Cemetery, 141
Pownal Centre (Vt.), 27, 174, 191, 199, 200, 204;
road, 36, 41, 198.
_See_ Centre-of-the-Town
Pownal Pond (Vt.), 16, 27, 28, 31, 62, 84, 143, 176, 180;
glacial hills around, 68;
picnic grove, 143.
_See_ Perch Pond
Prince’s Pine, 24, 187
Prune or Plum, origin of names, 119
_Prunus Pennsylvanica_, 119
_Pteris aquilina_, 20, 195
Pudding Grass, 132
Puff-Balls, 151.
_See_ Polypores
=Purple-Fringed Orchises=, 65.
See _Orchis_ and _Habenaria grandiflora_, and _H. psycodes_
Purple-Stemmed Cliff-Brake, 188, 195
Purple Grackel, 237
Putnam Valley (N. Y.), 163;
swamp of, 164;
railroad, 164
_Pyrola rotundifolia_, 187
Q
Quaker Meeting-House (mentioned by Hawthorne), South Adams (Mass.),
214
Quaking ground, 64
=Queen of the Lady’s Slipper=, 6;
haunts, 68.
_See_ Moccasin-Flower, and _Cypripedium reginæ_
R
Rabbit Plain, 139, 171, 175
Rafinesque, botanist, quoted on the sight of fences, 65
Ragged Mountains, base of Mount Greylock (Mass.), 13, 111, 212, 215
_Ranunculaceæ_, 5, 171
=Ram’s-Head Cypripedium=, botanical description, 243.
_See_ Lady’s Slipper or Moccasin-Flower and _C. arietinum_
=Rattlesnake Plantain=, generic description, 269
Downy Rattlesnake Plantain, 270
Menzies’ Rattlesnake Plantain, 271
Small One-Sided or Net-Leaf Rattlesnake Plantain, 270
White-Blotched Rattlesnake Plantain, 272
Rattlesnake Swamp, Mount Œta (Vt.), 133, 139, 148, 175, 185, 186,
207, 211, 220;
Rattlesnake Ledge, 59, 133;
Lloyd Spring, 62;
polypores, 151
Ray, a little lad of my acquaintance, 49
Readsboro (Vt.), 224
Redmen, 14, 17
Reindeer Moss, 186
Revolving Stones, Pot-hole formations, 190.
_See_ Pot-holes
Rhododendron, Great, 6
_Rhodora Canadensis_, 6
_Rhus_, Poison, 35, 63
Richardson, Dr. John, quoted on Arctic Orchids (1823), 60
Richmond’s Farm, White Oaks, 183
Riverside, Williamstown (Mass.), 197
_Robinson’s Garden_, cited on name “Dead-Men’s-Thumbs,” 110
Rocking Boulders or Stones, origin of, 199
Rocky Hollow, base of the Dome, 115, 207;
road through, 208, 211
Rock Pinks, 157, 161, 165
Rose Family, 119
_Ros Solis_, ancient name for Sundew (1578), 194
Royal-Fern, 12
Rue-in-the-Wall, Spleenwort, 188, 200, 212
Ruffled Grouse, 174
Ruskin, John, quoted, 201
Ruta-Muraria, 194, 195.
_See_ Rue-in-the-Wall
S
Sabrina, 21
Saddleback Mountain, North Adams (Mass.), 11;
Hawthorne’s description of, 215;
Thoreau’s mention of sunrise, 219
Salt Meadows, New Haven (Conn.), 125;
New Jersey, 231, 237
_Sanguinaria Canadensis_, 164
Saratoga, hills of, 98;
battle of, 97
_Sarcodes sanguinea_, 165
_Sarracenia purpurea_, 32.
_See_ Pitcher Plant
Sassafras, 186
_Satyrion Erythronium_, ancient name of Dog’s-Tooth Lily, 126, 127,
128
_Satyrion Royall_, ancient name of Purple-Fringed Orchises, 110;
palmate roots of, 111;
perfume of, 111
Saucy Jays, 149
Schaghticoke (N. Y.), site of ancient Indian village, 218
Scudder, Dr. S. H., cited on fertilization of _Pogonia_, 94
Sedges, 187
_Selurus noveboracensis_, 177
_Senecio aureus_, 162
September, month of, 237;
dates, 9th, 213;
15th, 153
=Serapias= or =Orchis=, species of, known to Pliny (23-79, A.D.), 109
“Seven doctors,” characters of Hawthorne’s, 215
Shadberry bushes, 31, 119, 186, 202
Shadberry pies, 119
Shakespeare, quoted on name, “Long Purples,” 110
Sheep pastures, 138
Shin-Leaf, 187
Shin-Plasters, 102
Side-Saddle Flowers, 32;
origin of name, 65.
_See_ Pitcher Plant
Sierra Nevada Mountains, 165
Silkweed, Purple-Flowered, 234
Skipper, Captain, in memory of, 229
Skunk Cabbage, 20, 160, 164, 232
Slaves, Cabins of, 196
Smith, Miss Clara, Medford (Mass.), author of poem,
_Jack-in-the-Pulpit_, 160
Snails, agents in fertilization, 69
=Snake-Mouth=, 90;
=Pogonia=, 47, 87.
See _Pogonia_
Snakeroot, 47
Snakes, 161, 174
Snowberry, 6, 14, 187, 209
Snow-Plant, allied with Indian Pipes, 165
Snuff Hollow or Crow’s Nest, Notch Valley, 213
Solomon’s Seal, 20, 21, 100, 171, 187;
False, 232
Sori or Spores of Ferns, 192
South Adams (Mass.), 213, 223;
South Village, 214
_Spathyema fœtida_, 20
Spatter-Dock, 69.
_See_ Lily, Yellow Pond, or _Nymphæa_
Sphagnous swamps, 8, 68, 88
_Sphagnum_, a genus of peat-moss, 116, 142, 152
Spleenwort, 194;
Scott’s, 199;
Maiden-Hair, 161, 212
Spring Beauties, blossoms, 157
Spring water, necessity of marking springs, 203, 208, 211
Spruce trees, 117, 138, 187
Spuyten Duyvil Creek, 158, 166
Squash cultivation, 146
Squirrel-Corn, 131
St. Cloud, Orange Mountains, N. J., 234, 235
St. Jacob’s Dippers, 32, 65
St. John’s Wort, 187
St. Nicholas Avenue (N. Y. City), 158
Stamford Mountains (Vt.), 185, 210, 224;
Hollow, 224
_Standergrass, Royall_, 110
Stars-of-Bethlehem, 19, 41, 62
State Line, Massachusetts and Vermont, 76
State Street, North Adams (Mass.), 112, 212
Staten Island (N. Y. City), 235
Stevenson, R. L., quoted, 224
Stick-tights or Pitchforks, 164
Stolen Moccasins, 44
Stone, Silas, Tavern of, 197, 198
Stone walls, 143
Stone-Liverworts, 194
Strawberries, 73, 95, 210
Sugar-Loaves, or glacial hills, 168
Sumach, Poison, 35, 181;
autumn leaves of, 103, 237
Sundew, Round-Leaved-, 32, 187, 194;
cultivation of, 146;
name, 194
Sun-dial tablet, 228
Swamp Apple blossoms, 6, 168.
_See_ Azalea, Pink
Swamp Maples, 67, 181
Swamp of Oracles, District Fourteen, Pownal (Vt.), 8, 44, 55, 57, 72,
79, 81, 82, 133, 141, 167, 168, 171, 172, 175, 179, 198, 204
Swanton (Vt.), fossil marine shells found at, 204
Sweet Flag, 25, 161
=Sweet Pogonia=, 83, 259.
See _Pogonia_, 259
Symond’s Peak, Greylock’s Brotherhood (Mass.), 11
T
Taconic Mountains, heart of the, 9, 11, 12
_Tanacetum vulgare_, 238
Tansy-Weed, 238
Tennyson quoted, 110
_Thalesia uniflora_, 164
Theophrastus cited on origins of plant names, 117, 133, 169, 195
Thermopylæ, Pass of, 96
Thimble-Berry blossoms, 238
Thistles, 238
Thompson’s Brook, 75, 85, 88, 146, 187
Thompson Pond, base of the Dome, Pownal (Vt.), 27, 145
Thoreau, Henry D., quoted, 10, 11, 15, 26, 84, 102, 125, 137, 157,
167, 183, 203, 231, 235, 237;
admiration for the location of Williams College, 10, 11;
on walking, 38;
on Great Fringed Orchises, 105;
descriptive of Notch Valley region, North Adams (Mass.), 216, 217,
219;
ascent of Greylock, 216;
entertained at Wilbur’s Farm, 216;
possible origin of poem, _Rumors from an Æolian Harp_, 217;
supper of rice, on Greylock’s summit, 219
Thorne-Apple, 174
Thrush, 12, 130;
haunts of, 152;
songs of, 153;
nests of, 153;
species of true, 153
Golden-crowned thrush, 153
Hermit-thrush, 153
Veery-thrush, 153
Water thrush, habits, 177
Wood-thrush, 153
_Thuja occidentalis_, 118
Ticonderoga, conflicts at, 97
Timothy-Heads, Cat’s-Tail Grass, 85
=Tipularia=, generic description, 280
=T. unifolia=, specific description, 281
_Transcript_, the, North Adams (Mass.), cited, 121
Trespassing, law against, 232
_Trillium_, 157, 162
_T. cernuum_, 163
Painted Trillium, 14, 19, 44, 134, 141, 163, 172, 175
Purple Trillium, 20, 21, 142
Troy-on-the-Hudson, 218;
stages to, 198
Tulip mania, 136
Tulip-Tree, 234, 235
“Tunnel City” (North Adams, Mass.), 7
_Turdus_, 153.
_See_ Thrush
Turnovers, 117
Turtles, 129
=Twayblade, Lily-Leaved=, 162, 274.
See _Leptorchis_, 274
=Large Twayblade=, 274
=Loesel’s Twayblade= or =Fen Orchis=, 275
=Twayblade, Lister’s.=
See _Listera_, 267
=Auricled Twayblade.=
See _L. auriculata_, 268
=Broad-Lipped Twayblade=, 268
=Heart-Leaved Twayblade=, 269
Twin Cascades, Hoosac Tunnel Mountain, 222
_Typha_, 25
U
Umbrella-Fern, 199
Uncle Abe-the-Bunter, a local name for Abraham Parsons, 197
_Unifolium Canadense_, 20, 176
_Usnea_, 186
V
_Vaccinium_, 119, 159
_V. corymbosum_, 118
_V. Pennsylvanicum_, 118
_V. vacillans_, 118
_Vagnera stellata_, 21
_V. trifolia_, 21
Valerian, American, 47
V. European, 47
V. False, 162
Van Courtlandt Farm, 166;
Mansion, 163, 166, 202
Veery, 153.
_See_ Thrush
Venus-Hair Fern, 194, 195
Venus of classical literature, 58, 59
“=Venus Slippers=,” 34.
_See_ Lady’s-Slipper
_Veratrum viride_, 5, 47
_Verbascum Thapsus_, 238
Vermont, 10, 18, 40, 43
Virgil quoted, 119, 159
Virgin’s-Bower, 140
_Viola dens-canis_, 126.
_See_ Dog’s-Tooth Lily
_Viola_ or Violets, 5, 126, 130, 141, 165, 232;
origin of name, 159
_V. bicolor_, 159
_V. blanda_, 5, 159. Sweet White Violet
_V. Canadensis_, 159, 172, 208. Sweet Canada Violet
_V. pedata_, 157-159. Bird’s-foot Violet
_V. pubescens_, 157, 159. Downy Yellow Violet
_V. rotundifolia_, 158. Round-Leaved Violet
_Vitis cordifolia_, 181
W
Wake Robins, 5, 104;
Painted, 41;
Nodding, 163
Walden Farm, Notch Valley, 213, 214, 220
Walking, 3, 15, 75
Walking Fern, haunts, 4, 190, 191, 193, 198-200, 213, 228
Walloomsac River, Bennington (Vt.), 188, 202
Wall-Rue, Spleenwort Fern, 191, 192, 194
Wars, the French and Indian, 97
Washington (D. C.), 126
Washington Heights (N. Y. City), 158
Washoe Valley (Nevada), 165
Wash-Tub Brook, North Pownal (Vt.), 188, 190, 193
Water, pure drinking, 210, 214, 218, 219
Water-Cress, 162
Water Persicaria, 84
Weeping Rocks, or Gregor Rocks, 193
Welch Farm, Mount Œta, 139
Western Gateway of Hoosac Mountain, 13, 14
West Orange (N. J.), 231
Wentworth, Governor Benning, 198
West Peak, State Park, Meriden (Conn.), 129
West Rock, New Haven (Conn.), 4, 126, 129, 130, 158
Westville (Conn.), swamps of, 85, 125, 129, 130
Whale fossil discovered in Vermont, 204
Whig Tavern, North Adams (Mass.) (1838), 215
Whippoorwills, chorus of, 95, 96;
baby, 96, 175, 176, 205;
eggs and nest of, 175, 205;
habits of, 175, 176
Whippoorwill’s-Shoes, 206.
_See_ Moccasin-Flowers and _Cypripedium_
White Mountains (N. H.), 47, 214, 235
White Oaks, northern Berkshire (Mass.), region, 76, 121, 183, 197;
road, 120, 183, 196, 197, 207;
chapel, 196;
origin of name, 197
Whittier, J. G., quoted, on poem, _Jack-in-the-Pulpit_, 160;
_Mayflowers_, 24;
_Mabel Martin_, 39;
_Seeking of the Waterfall_, 15;
_Storm on Lake Asquam_, 72
Whortleberry, 119
Whorts of the 16th century, 120
Wilbur, Jeremiah, farm of, Notch Valley, northern Berkshire, 216, 220;
Thoreau’s ascent to Greylock through The Notch, 218
Wild Cat Express, Hoosac Valley, 120
Wild Hens, 174
Wildmont Cottage, Orange Mountains (N. J.), 232, 233
Wildwood or Tiger Lilies, 210
Williams, Orlando, Swamp, Orange Mountains (N. J.), 234
Williams College, Williamstown (Mass.), 76, 219;
Thoreau’s admiration of the location of, 10;
Baccalaureate Sunday, 70;
students, 70, 196;
sun-dial tablet, 228;
Museum, relics in, 228;
Library, 228.
Williamstown, Berkshire County (Mass.), 121
Willow Dell, North Adams (Mass.), 215
Willow Family, 23
Wilsey Lot, White Oaks, 184
Wintergreens, 23
Witch Hollow, Gulf Road, Pownal (Vt.), 16, 23, 56, 98, 138, 139, 188,
206;
orchids of, 108
Witt’s Ledge, North Adams (Mass.), 112
Wolf’s-Claw, 182
Wolfe, Dr., quoted, 222
Wood Betony, 165
Woodbine Family, 170
Woodbridge (Conn.), view of, 129
Woodchuck’s home, 177, 205
Woodmont (Conn.), 235
Woolly Moonshine, 237
Wormwood, 238
X
Xenocrates prescribed “Penny-Royall,” 132
Y
Yale, catnip for pussy, 132, 133
Yeomen of northern Berkshire (1777), 76
Yonkers (N. Y.), 157, 161
Z
Zoar (Mass.), Eastern Portal of Hoosac Tunnel, 224
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