_Arethusa bulbosa_
_Flowers_--1 to 2 in. long, bright purple pink, solitary, violet
scented, rising from between a pair of small scales at end of smooth
scape from 5 to 10 in. high. Lip dropping beneath sepals and petals,
broad, rounded, toothed, or fringed, blotched with purple, and with
three hairy ridges down its surface. _Leaf:_ Solitary, hidden at first,
coming after the flower, but attaining length of 6 in. _Root:_ Bulbous.
_Fruit:_ A 6-ribbed capsule, 1 in. long, rarely maturing.
_Preferred Habitat_--Northern bogs and swamps.
_Flowering Season_--May-June.
_Distribution_--From North Carolina and Indiana northward to the Fur
Countries.
One flower to a plant, and that one rarely maturing seed; a temptingly
beautiful prize which few refrain from carrying home, to have it wither
on the way; pursued by that more persistent lover than Alpheus, the
orchid-hunter who exports the bulbs to European collectors--little
wonder this exquisite orchid is rare, and that from certain of those
cranberry bogs of eastern New England, which it formerly brightened with
its vivid pink, it has now gone forever. Like Arethusa, the nymph whom
Diana changed into a fountain that she might escape from the infatuated
river god, Linnaeus fancied this flower a maiden in the midst of a
spring bubbling from wet places where presumably none may follow her.