Bog-Trotting for Orchids

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 hirsutum22 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.