_Habenaria ciliaris_
_Flowers_--Bright yellow or orange, borne in a showy, closely set,
oblong spike, 3 to 6 in. long. The lip of each flower copiously fringed;
the slender spur 1 to 1-1/2 in. long; similar to White-fringed Orchis
(see above); and between the two, intermediate pale yellow hybrids may
be found. _Stem:_ Slender, leafy, 1 to 2-1/2 feet high. _Leaves:_
Lance-shaped, clasping.
_Preferred Habitat_--Moist meadows and sandy bogs.
_Flowering Season-_--July-August.
_Distribution_--Vermont to Florida; Ontario to Texas.
Where this brilliant, beautiful orchid and its lovely white sister grow
together in the bog--which cannot be through a very wide range, since
one is common northward, where the other is rare, and _vice versa_--the
Yellow-fringed Orchis will be found blooming a few days later. In
general structure the plants closely resemble each other.
From Ontario and the Mississippi eastward, and southward to the Gulf,
the Tubercled or Small Pale Green Orchis _(H. flava)_ lifts a spire of
inconspicuous greenish-yellow flowers, more attractive to the eye of the
structural botanist than to the aesthete. It blooms in moist places, as
most orchids do, since water with which to manufacture nectar enough to
fill their deep spurs is a prime necessity. Orchids have arrived at that
pinnacle of achievement that it is impossible for them to fertilize
themselves. More than that, some are absolutely sterile to their own
pollen when it is applied to their stigmas artificially! With insect
aid, however, a single plant has produced more than 1,000,700 seeds. No
wonder, then, that as a family, they have adopted the most marvellous
blandishments and mechanism in the whole floral kingdom to secure the
visits of that special insect to which each is adapted, and, having
secured him, to compel him unwittingly to do their bidding. In the
steaming tropical jungles, where vegetation is luxuriant to the point of
suffocation, and where insect life swarms in myriads undreamed of here,
we can see the best of reasons for orchids mounting into trees and
living on air to escape strangulation on the ground, and for donning
larger and more gorgeous apparel to attract attention in the fierce
competition for insect trade waged about them. Here, where the struggle
for survival is incomparably easier, we have terrestrial orchids, small,
and quietly clad, for the most part.