Part 7

Yet Thoreau had a different impression of the rose-pink Pogonia’s fragrance, and says in his notes in _Summer_, on June 21, 1852: “The adder’s-tongue arethusa smells exactly like a snake. How singular that in Nature, too, beauty and offensiveness should be thus combined!”[26] On July 7, 1852, he again mentions these species of orchids: “The very handsome ‘pink-purple’ flowers of the _Calopogon pulchellus_ (now known as _Limodorum tuberosum_) enrich the grass all around the edge of Hubbard’s blueberry swamp, and are now in their prime. The _Arethusa bulbosa_, ‘crystalline purple,’ _Pogonia ophioglossoides_, snake-mouthed (tongued) arethusa, ‘pale-purple,’ and the _Calopogon pulchellus_, grass-pink, ‘pink-purple,’ make one family in my mind (next to the purple orchis, or with it), being flowers _par excellence_, all flower, naked flowers, and difficult, at least the Calopogons, to preserve. But they are flowers, excepting the first, at least, without a name. _Pogonia!_ _Calopogon!!_ They would blush still deeper if they knew what names man had given them.”[27]

The Pogonia seems to bloom slightly in advance of Limodorum, and is a delicate, waxen-pink flower. It raises its single terminal blossom about six inches high amid the tall grasses of the swampy meadow. It is not so beautiful as its comrade species, the Grass-Pink; but to me it is sweetly fragrant, and since it is an orchid, it is precious, although small and somewhat unsightly in its suggestiveness.

[Illustration: =The Thompson Brook, East Pownal, Vermont.=

“_They left their home of Summer ease_ _Beneath the lowland’s sheltering trees,_ _To seek, by ways unknown to all,_ _The promise of the waterfall._”

WHITTIER.]

There are two leaves: one, oblong and sessile, appears in the middle of the stem; and another smaller, bract-like leaf is found at the base of the seed-capsule, bearing the nodding blossom with its alert bearded petals. The roots are little clusters of fibrous threads, loosely attached in the moss-grown mounds of the primeval forest stumps,—which are slowly decaying below the soil in these aged swamps.

The Grass-Pink (_Limodorum tuberosum_) is much more attractive, with its rose and pink-purple blossoms. The spike, often a foot high, bears from two to fifteen beautiful and slightly fragrant flowers. The origin of the generic name, _Limodorum_, comes from the Greek, meaning “a meadow gift.” These flowers, according to Mr. Coleman, are called Grass-Pinks in Michigan, while Thoreau also called them by the same name in Massachusetts.[28] The labellum seems hinged at the insertion, and is bearded with yellow and purple hairs. There is seldom more than one freshly blown blossom on the stalk at a time, and thus the plant remains attractive for some days. Beginning at the lowermost bud, each one takes its turn in unfolding, the spike slowly lengthening while the buds constantly increase in size and color.

One interesting peculiarity of this species is that it remains as Nature originally intended all species of orchids,—with the labellum as the _upper_ petal, instead of the lower, as seen in all other native species. It will be observed in species of the Orchid Family that a twist of the seed-pod has taken place: if not a complete revolution, at least half a turn. The labellum is, therefore, directed forward on the lower or inferior side, as in the species of Cypripedium, where it appears in the position of a shoe or moccasin, instead of holding itself above like a dome, as originally intended by Nature. Darwin says of this: “An enormous amount of extinction must have swept away a multitude of intermediate forms, and has left this single genus, now widely distributed, as a record of a former and more simple state of the great Orchidean Order.”[29]

The ovary of the Grass-Pink is straight, and the labellum so hinged that it falls down like an arch above, bearded with delicate hairs. The column bearing the anther, containing four soft pollen-masses, curves slightly at the end, producing a hollow wherein lies the pollinia. The stigmatic surface lies still farther toward the centre of the column. An insect sipping nectar from these flowers, safely enters without distributing the adhesive pollinia, since the anthers containing the cells are so hinged that not until he turns to leave the heart of the flower does he swing open the lid of the cup containing the powdery gold, which fastens to the velvet of his coat beneath his body. The next flower of this species, therefore, becomes fertilized properly, and in turn unlocks her treasure-store as the insect backs off the keel of the pollen mass. Professor Meehan writes that this plant “rarely fails to produce perfect seed-vessels. Yet it is seldom that plants which depend on insects for their supply of pollen, as these are supposed to do, and which are not fertilized by their own pollen, produce seeds from every flower.”[30]

[Illustration: =The Grass-Pink.= (_Limodorum tuberosum._)

This is a strange, beautiful orchid with a straight seed-pod (ovary), which causes the labellum to remain on the upper side of the inner whorl, instead of the lower side by torsion as in nearly all other orchids.]

It is said that the twisted ovary seen in orchids came about through necessity in fertilization. This has caused, as Darwin says, “the labellum to assume the position of a lower petal, so that insects can easily visit the flower; but from slow changes in the form or position of the petals, or from new sorts of insects visiting the flowers, it might be advantageous to the plant that the labellum should resume its normal position on the _upper_ side of the flower.”[31] In the present position of the labellum of Cypripedium we observe the convenient resting-place for the bee as it alights and descends to the interior, where are stored the nectar and attractive colors. The insect must be persevering indeed to win the soul of the orchids, since Nature has constructed their organs with such care and modifications. The hidden hinge to the cups of pollen—as instanced in the flowers of the Grass-Pink—demonstrates that even the finest hairs and tissues in these plants have their meaning and their values.

Self-fertilization seems impossible to the Rose-colored Pogonia, which bears but one flower. The plants must inter-cross. An interesting account of the fertilization of this orchid is given at length by Dr. Samuel H. Scudder,[32] in the _Proceedings_ of the Boston Society of Natural History.

VIII

A Colony of Ram’s-Heads in Witch Hollow

The solemn wood had spread Shadows around my head,— “Curtains they are,” I said, “Hung dim and still about the house of prayer”; Softly among the limbs, Turning the leaves of hymns, I heard the winds, and asked if God were there. No voice replied, but while I listening stood, Sweet peace made holy hushes through the wood.

ALICE CARY, _The Sure Witness_.

It was often a temptation during my search for wild strawberries, to saunter through the swampy meadows on the northern slopes of Mount Œta, where nesting bobolinks were busy about their homes. Their happy notes are the first to awaken one in the morning, and almost the last heard at twilight, about the edges of the road and the orchard, where they come in a very business-like way to search for food, crying the while, “Bob-o’-link, bob-o’-link, spink, spank, spink; chee, chee, chee!”

As twilight deepens and the moon comes up from behind the grim form of the Dome, the mournful notes of a distant chorus of whippoorwills begin, echoing on until far into the early morning. The other noon I was startled to hear a baby whippoorwill practising his melancholy tale on the hillside above the house, where no doubt his mother had lost him the night before. He had “stayed out all night,” and knew no better than to sing in the daytime. I suppose his mother had not yet taught him when and how to sing, for he could only lisp now, saying “’Tis-so-still! ’Tis-so-still!” It sounded very odd at noon, although it was dark and rainy. I searched through the daisied meadow for him, and found that he was a full-sized bird,—too large to be lisping such baby notes, though not old enough to find the way to the twilight woods alone. Perhaps he was backward in his singing lessons, and his mother had punished him by leaving him to practise all day, when other birds of the night were drowsing under the shelter of old logs in the deep wood. So he sang on and on, at intervals, all the afternoon in the rain, out on the grassy hilltop.

I found a bobolink’s nest low in the swamp meadow, near where there were many busy “Roberts of Lincoln.” Their rich, energetic, gladsome song was very contagious, and brightened many an hour when I was housed, or sat on the porch, watching the storms come up in the north and west.

[Illustration: =The Perry Elm, Marking the Site of Fort Massachusetts, on the Harrison’s Flats, North Adams, Massachusetts, Showing Saddleback Mountain in the Distance.=]

Mount Œta is one of the foothills of the Dome, lying just west of the Domelet. The Hoosac glides around its “dug-away” base, passing through the narrowest portion of the valley near the Massachusetts State Line. This pass is often called the “Golden Gate,” likened to the Pass of Thermopylæ, among the mountains of ancient Greece. Indeed, the warring history of this valley may be comparable with that of the plains of Marathon and the mountains of Hellas. Through the Hoosac Pass, during the French and Indian Wars, have marched the French cadets and cunning Indians, led by General Rigaud de Vaudreuil, to storm and capture Fort Massachusetts near the base of Greylock’s Brotherhood. Here they fought, sixty to one. These encounters were but forerunners of the Bennington rebellion among the Green Mountain Boys, and the conflicts at Ticonderoga, which led to one of the world’s great battles, fought among the hills and vales of Saratoga.

The summit of Mount Œta is crowned with luxuriant farms, with flowing fields of grain and grasses. Miniature hills and vales between, with little streams leading down the slopes, perfect an ideal pastoral dream. There is none of the boldness in the scene from this height, as observed from Mount Greylock, Mount Anthony, or the Majestic Dome.

Very often the highest summits, especially those of the Dome and the Greylock group, are draped with rosy-tinged clouds and lowering veils of mist at the sunrise hour. One of the rarest visions seen from our modern Mount Œta occurs about six o’clock in the morning, frequently during the months of June and July, when the whole valley of the Hoosac appears filled with a perfect sea of billowy fog, the distant blue mountain peaks rising above. With the golden lights of dawn falling upon this ocean of beauty, one can trace twenty miles of fairy-sea, as the foaming fog follows the serpentine windings of the Hoosac from its source under Greylock, ever broadening toward the plains of Hoosac Falls and the hills of Saratoga. Before ten o’clock the mist usually dissolves, or rises as the sun burns forth.

In all my wanderings, I had kept an eye out for the leaves and seed-capsules of the Ram’s-Head Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium arietinum_), and had revisited the Amidon Woods, where Lorenna found the first specimen for me, but without discovering any new plants. On Sunday, the second day of July, a friend and myself drove to Pownal Centre. We returned by the Gulf, or “Witch-Hollow” path,—a cross-town road seldom travelled, although shaded and pleasant. Here the sounds of the winds, breathing and reverberating through the narrow vales, then dying mournfully in the distance, intimidated the early settlers, who, being superstitious, attributed the sounds to the witches so prevalent in the history of New England. To-day there are no more dreadful sounds in these glens than the hoots of owls and the piping of frogs in the Chalk Pond pools.

We were nearing the pond region. Just west of the road there is a beautiful, ever-bubbling spring, known far and wide to tourists sauntering to Mann Mountain beyond. From this I wished to get a draught of delicious water for my friend, so I hitched the old horse to a tree by the roadside. Somehow this morning I lost my bearings, and entered the wrong ravine. I had supposed that I could find the spring in the dark; but I penetrated the thicket a little north of the right place, by the slab-bridge where, in rainy seasons, the water drains from the hills. Hunting around, however, to learn where the spring lay, I stumbled straight upon a little company of Ram’s-Head Lady’s Slippers. In my pleasure and excitement, I exclaimed, “Here are Ram’s-Heads!” frightening my friend so that she ran clear out of the thicket. She soon returned, however, when assured that there was no danger, and admired the rare little flock with me. There were only a dozen plants in the group, none of course in blossom; but several bore plump seed-capsules, proving that they had bloomed early in the season. I determined to return to this nook another day.

The next morning I started off cross-lots, over the hills afoot, to my sylvan shades, carrying my usual basket and kit of tools, with an added two-quart pail, which I promised to fill with raspberries. These berries were plentiful, I had observed, through the John-Fallow sheep pastures. Here I found a spring trickling from the shelving slate rocks, and this guided me through a meandering network of swamps, all the way to Cold Spring, in Witch Hollow below.

Major frisked about among the fields, and we had a happy time sliding down the dry and slippery pasture slopes. There, at the foot of the hill, we entered a deep, dark woodland,—just Major and I, who are faithful, congenial comrades. My constant hound is ever ready to follow my footsteps, and if he chances to lose me, I soon hear his yelp on my track. Dear old Major! I value you more than I tell you by these gentle strokes,—you, whose searching instincts would find me out wherever I might be, and whose keen scent of danger is my constant protection!

Everything was still in the hollow to-day, save for the croaking of the bull-frogs and the buzzing of flies and humming of bees, echoing from the pools and numerous flowers of Solomon’s Seal along the edges of the swamp. It was noon when I reached my colony of Ram’s-Heads, and I was glad to be sheltered in these cool glades this sweltering July day. I took note near what species of trees my rare Cypripediums grew, and found that they were rooted in loose leaf mould, from long decayed heaps of pine branches and tree-tops, left by the woodman when the forest was first hewn from these slopes. Here, also, stood crumbling stumps, and prostrate trunks lay at full length, decaying in the marl and peat. Among this mouldering soil was a pile of four-foot white birchwood—near some of the best plants of Ram’s-Head, three of which bore maturing seed-pods. Directly through the group, a wood-path wound around the hill from Cold Spring toward the north, worn by the small wild animals of the forest.

[Illustration: =The Small Round-Leaved Orchis.= (_Habenaria Hookeriana._)

This species is closely related to the Large Round-Leaved Orchis (_Habenaria orbiculata_) and _Habenaria oblongifolia_, with which it grows in company.]

Just east of the plants I had found on Sunday, I discovered at least fifty more, withdrawn to themselves, in aristocratic exclusiveness. I lifted three of the oldest and largest plants, two of which bore large seed-pods, taking them up carefully and with plenty of soil, so as not to disturb the fibrous roots. The layer of leaf mould was loosely strewn, and not so deep here as I had expected to find it. Scarcely three inches beneath the surface, I came to a bright, whitish gravel. The spot was situated on a sloping hillside, which seemed to surround a hollow among the hills, where a glacial lake had formerly slept. It is called to-day “Chalk Pond,” the water being whitish at times in the streams flowing from the heart of the region. The soil was rich with unfathomable depths of peat and marl in the lake bed below. Peat is formed by decaying moss, ferns, and vegetable matter in general, while the marl, which lends a chalky appearance to the water and gravel, comes from the crumbling and decayed shells abounding in the soil. This loam seems to be valuable, and the pond bed is now well drained for the purpose of selling the substance as a fertilizer for lawns.

White birch, chestnut, pines, and nearer the pond meadow below, beautiful elms towered skyward. From this corner I searched the hillsides to the north, along the path. At the feet of some chestnut saplings, I found the Small Round-Leaved Orchis (_Habenaria Hookeriana_). The plant was young, and apparently had not put forth blossoms this summer. They appear in early June in this region. Leaving the plant to study another year, I sought the southern hillside, and came suddenly upon a sight which I shall not soon forget. Before me stood the Great Round-Leaved Orchis (_Habenaria orbiculata_), with its two huge, round, flat-lying leaves of a soft emerald green, about eight inches long by seven wide. It bore a tall, bracted spike of greenish-white flowers,—strange, fantastic shapes, trimmed with spurs and hoods and capes. This spike of flowers rose straight up from between the two round basal leaves. It was about two feet high originally, but had been broken, doubtless by the hailstorms of June. The common names of the Round-Leaved Orchises hereabout are “Shin-plaster” and “Heal-all,” since they are applied to bruised shins, and are used as plasters for weak lungs. Thoreau, in _Maine Woods_, gives even larger dimensions of the Great Green Orchis found by him in the vicinity of Mud Pond, Moosehead and Chamberlain Carries, Maine,—where he reported it very common in July.

I sat for some time admiring this weird plant; when finding that it had sown seed the former season, I decided to transport it to a garden of civilization, to see if it would take kindly to cultivation. Then I turned westward, following the sluggish yet sparkling stream down from Cold Spring. At times the stream was almost hidden by moss, through which it crept slowly.

This brook enters a large, open, meadow marsh,—the ancient lake bed of which I have spoken before,—the Chalk Pond hollow. Since it is now drained, it appears to be a promising soil in which to seek the Purple-Fringed Habenarias in the proper season. I found the leaves of a plant which I believe to have been that of one of the Purple-Fringed Orchises, but from its producing no flowers this season I was not able to designate it. Here, also, small ferns and luxuriant brakes were sheltered amid the low sumach bushes and willows. Wild grape-vines entwined the trunks of trees, reaching far into the tops of the high elms. One immense elm had been blown over by some northeast hurricane, which had quite recently swept through this hollow. The upturned roots of this ruined tree had apparently grown about a deeply buried fellow in the peat and marl, for they still retained the impression of the buried trunk about which they had clung. In the mud and water from which the tree had been torn, lay in its deep grave this log, bare of its outer bark, but still sound and round. It was now well water-soaked, after having been so long sealed from the air and light beneath the earth. How many centuries it had been buried there, no one can guess. The now apparently aged elm upon the surface had torn up several feet of earth as it fell. Forest after forest had thus fallen, a new one rising over it, eventually to give place to another, and itself to form a strata of mould, enriching the soil of these bogs which yield so many floral treasures.

I did not remain in this meadow long, as it proved still too damp to walk through grasses and sedges without water-tight boots. Coming out of this place at the foot of the little ravine below the colony of Ram’s-Heads, I ran upon numerous oblong, waxen, green leaves, which at first reminded me of the similar leaves of the Pink Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium acaule_). But on closer search for their seed-capsules, I found the fresh bracted processes of a spike containing several ovaries instead of one, as in the Moccasin-Flower. Evidently this plant was not a species of Cypripedium; and although the scape was broken, enough of the alternating process of twisting ovaries remained to assure me that I had found a colony of the early and Showy Orchis (_Orchis spectabilis_), which is one of the first species of orchids to bloom in New England. Indeed, it is said to open the orchid season as early as May 19th, and is found with the Wake-Robins and Arbutus, when the woods are otherwise bare and brown. I secured three of the finest plants.

My basket was now laden with choice species, including those of the Ram’s-Head, the Showy Orchis, and two species of Habenaria, a sister genus of _Orchis spectabilis_. The locality had proven a treasure-ground to me, for here were both the Great and the Small Round-Leaved Orchis (_Habenaria orbiculata_ and _Habenaria Hookeriana_); while the Tall Green Orchis (_Habenaria hyperborea_) dwells in the deeper bogs along the stream.

The leaves of the Purple-Fringed Orchis (_Habenaria grandiflora_) are hidden in the borders of the open meadow. I found a few plants of that very rare orchid called Adder’s-Mouth (_Achroanthes unifolia_) seldom if ever before collected in this town. The plants are so small and inconspicuous that one may search long without seeing them. Two stood among the select company of Ram’s-Heads, while others grew along a damp, silent brook bed that had ceased to flow,—a ravine formed during spring freshets and melting snows.

[Illustration: =The Showy Orchis.= (_Orchis spectabilis._)

Showing the plant nearly natural size. This species is closely allied with the Early Spring Orchis (_Orchis mascula_) of England. It is the most highly organized of our native orchids.]

This pigmy of the Orchid Family—with its pale and odorless flower and its unassuming habit of concealing itself in the darkest recesses of our forests and swamps—grows plentifully in its native haunts to the north.

I had searched long and closely for the last month, hoping to find the Large Purple-Fringed Orchis. Thoreau says: “It is remarkable that this, one of the fairest of all our flowers, should also be one of the rarest—for the most part not seen at all.... The village belle never sees this more delicate belle of the swamp.... A beauty reared in the shade of a convent, who has never strayed beyond the convent bell. Only the skunk or the owl, or other inhabitant of the swamp, beholds it.”[33]

The Yellow-Fringed Orchis follows later, blooming through August and September,—the blossoming season of the flaming Cardinal-Flower, whose brilliant coloring brightens the dark shades along streams in moist woods. The Yellow-Fringed Habenarias are found growing with the Pitcher Plant, and often fill the sphagnous swamps with a glowing mass of orange-flamed torches. Gray considered them among our handsomest species of Habenaria. They are abundant in swamps about New Haven, Connecticut, while the White-Fringed Orchises seek the coast-lines of Massachusetts, although also found sparingly in the highlands.

Species of Habenaria are called False Orchises, while species of Orchis are known as True Orchises. These species are members of sister genera, but all belong to the Orchid Family. There are but three True Orchises found on the continent north of Mexico, while not less than forty-four species of Habenaria are reported for the same area.