by bees and flies; while those with long spurs are visited by moths and
butterflies with long proboscides.
The structure of various species calls for special insects to fertilize
and cross-fertilize them. The failure to attract the proper agencies
has led Nature slowly to change the organs of many orchids so that
self-fertilization might be accomplished. In this way, “an enormous
amount of extinction” must have taken place. A wide gap of obliteration
intervenes between species of Orchis and Cypripedium, the former being
the most highly organized and the latter the lowest, or abnormal species
of the Orchid Family.
The species included under the great genus Habenaria grow more abundantly
than any other on our continent. It is not unusual to find five or six
species of this genus in a neighborhood such as the Bogs of Etchowog
or Witch Hollow region. In the latter locality I found four species of
Habenaria, two of Cypripedium, one of Achroanthes, and one of Orchis,
making in all eight rare species for a very small area of swamp-land.
Soon after I reached home with my basket of roots, the front porch
exhibited a long row of pots and tin cans, where stood my transplanted
treasures, ultimately to be placed in the garden of a friend in New Haven.
It has always been a source of wonder that Thoreau did not find more
species of the Orchid Family in the conifer swamps in the Maine woods.
His journeys made in July, through pine and cedar and mud-pond regions,
should have led to the discovery of more species than he mentions.
He writes of but three species of Habenaria, one of Ladies’ Tresses
(_Gyrostachys_), and one of Twayblade (_Leptorchis liliifolia_).
To be sure, he found the Great Round-Leaved Habenaria and the two
Purple-Fringed species in abundance, but there is no record of a
Cypripedium in his data save as reported for Concord.
Species of Orchis and Habenaria are among the oldest orchids known
in the records of ancient herbalists and naturalists. Both of our
native Purple-Fringed Orchises (_Habenaria grandiflora_ and _Habenaria
psycodes_) are closely allied with _Orchis morio_, found so abundantly in
the fields of England. Pliny, in the time of Christ, knew this plant as
_Orchis_ or _Serapias_, which Fée has identified with the _Orchis morio_
now known in Europe. This species is more nearly related to our Small
Purple-Fringed Orchis than to the larger species.
The origin of the name _Orchis_ arose from the ancient lore of classical
mythology. Orchis, a son of a rural god named Patellanus, failed to
observe the rules of politeness while attending a festival of Bacchus,
and offended one of the priestesses with his rude behavior. He was
reported to the attendants for punishment, who in anger tore him to
pieces. His father Patellanus, and his mother, that sweet nymph Acolasia,
sought the co-deities’ influence, who, it is said, urged the superior
gods to command a flower to rise from the earth perpetuating the name
and memory of their son. Thus arose the strange untamable species of this
family.
The species now known under genus Orchis and Habenaria had various common
names in ancient literature. There were five kinds of Orchis which the
Greeks commonly called Cynorchis; this became in Latin _Testiculus canis_
and _Testiculus morionis_, and later in England, _Orchis morio_. Satyrion
was also an ancient common English name for the species of Cynorchis
known to the Greek apothecaries.
In the sixteenth century the Purple-Fringed Orchises of England were
known as _Satyrion Royall_, _Noble Satyrion_, _Palma Christi_, and
_Royall Standergrasse_. In fact, all species of orchids in 1578 were
described under the group of plants designated as _Standlewort_, or
_Standergrasse_.[34]
Shakespeare mentions them in _Hamlet_ as “Long-Purples” and “Dead-Men’s
Fingers.” Tennyson also speaks of them as Long-Purples in _A Dirge_.
Rev. Mr. Ellacomb, in _Robinson’s Garden_, alludes to these orchises as
“Dead-Men’s Thumbs.”
The Great Royall Satyrion of England and Germany, known to Dodoens and
Lyte in 1578, was found in meadows and moist woods. The flowers were
light purple, and gave forth sweet perfume. The roots were described
as double, like a pair of hands, and each palm was parted into four or
five small roots like fingers; one palm being withered and spongy, the
other full and sound. From this peculiarity of form many of the names
were undoubtedly derived. There was also another small purple species of
Royall Satyrion, with a perfume like musk. The roots were like the larger
purple Royall Satyrion.
[Illustration: =The Large Purple-Fringed Orchis.= (_Habenaria
grandiflora._)
Closely allied to _Habenaria psycodes_ of New England, and to the English
Long Purples (_Orchis Morio_) of ancient literature. They are mentioned
by Shakespeare in _Hamlet_.
“_There with fantastic garlands did she come_
_Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples._”
_“Hamlet,” Act IV., Sc. 7._
From lithograph in Meehan’s _Native Flowers and Ferns of the United
States_, 1: 1878. By permission.]
The roots of Royall Satyrion were used as remedies against many diseases.
“If an inch or as much as one’s _thombe_ of this roote be pound and
ministered in wine, it is good for many diseases,” writes Dr. Nicholas
Nicols, according to Dodoens and Lyte in 1578.[35]
These orchises have figured in literature from time unknown, and although
shy in New England, seeking the haunts of moose and bear, they delight
still to grow in hearing of the cathedral bells in old England, where
they are the common flowers of meadow and borders of corn-fields.
The proverb, that all things come round to him who waits, may for the
orchis-hunter be paraphrased rather, “All things come round to him who
tramps.” I was destined sooner or later, by lonely lake or mountain bog,
to find the Purple-Fringed Orchis for which I had so long searched.
Later in the season, on July 8th, I visited Notch Brook, North Adams, a
stream flowing down through the northern Notch Valley. Wandering past
the beautiful Cascade, I slowly explored the wooded vales among the
Ragged Mountains. The afternoon was sultry; the sun pouring down upon the
parched sod of the rocky pasture-land had shrivelled up the grasses, and
now the bushes themselves were turning brown, and the leaves curling up
on their edges. Through the trembling haze, partially due to the vile
smoke of civilization, which arose from the various factories in the
City, the sun appeared as a round, red ball of fire.
I had chosen a poor day for walking, but there were cool, shady retreats
on the way, where I could find rest and shelter. I clambered down from
the slopes of Aurora’s Hill, into the shadow of the valley’s smoke,
crossing the sluggish stream of the Ashuilticook, by way of the iron
bridge in Flag’s Meadows. I climbed to the swamps along the Ragged Hills
leading to The Notch. Here the slopes of pasture-lands above State Street
are clothed with bushes and brambles, through which rough, stony paths
wind, where dwell the children of sunny Italy. Witt’s Ledge of lime and
marble stone lies along this swell. These rough paths, with wooden steps
leading summitward, were new to me.
Upon the brow of the hill was a small pond hidden at the head of an
extensive swamp, amid willows and lush tangled grasses, where little lads
were bathing. It was one of those wild mountainous pasture-lands where
blackberry briars and sweet-fern run riot, and where the pepper-bushes
and tall brakes shed forth an aromatic perfume under the full blaze of
the summer sun. About the drier portions of the swamp were well-worn
cow-paths, winding irregularly about the hummocks and boulders; and along
the borders grew many familiar weeds and vines amid the swails and flags.
[Illustration: =The Blackberry Blossoms from Mount Œta, Pownal, Vermont.=]
My boots being high and waterproof, I waded warily through the coarse
lush grasses and cat-tail flags, encountering many deep pools. As I
pushed forward, my heart sang in the very joy of living:
Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,
When our mother Nature laughs around;
When even the deep blue heavens look glad,
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?[36]
At the west end of the cow-path I came suddenly upon one tall,
Purple-Fringed Orchis. This was my first good fortune in finding this
beautiful species, although I have since found many. I stood long in
wonderment and silent adoration before this fragrant beauty of the weird
and lonely bogland, rearing its strange fringed petals high above the
common swamp grasses. Searching about to the north and south, I found a
colony of six more spikes, which assured me that I would be justified in
taking the first plant I had found; and placing it with the utmost care
in my crowded vasculum, I then proceeded mountainward.
On the very brow of the hill I wound around to the left, entering the
wood-road leading to the Notch Valley. A beautiful cold spring gushes
out in the heart of this wood, under the hill at the right, near the
Cascade path. I freshened my flowers here, and hurried on to the famous
foot-bridge over Notch Brook, plunging on down through the hemlock wood
to get a hurried view of the Cascade below.
As I returned homeward over the heated fields, I found the atmosphere
very exhausting; and the flowers, although protected in my botanizing
can, were wilted. Measuring the broad expanse that intervened between
me and the hill of Aurora’s Lake, the journey seemed interminable. The
distance was finally covered, however, and both my fatigue and the
fact that I was late for tea were forgotten in the ecstasy of having
found that first Purple-Fringed Orchis. This spike grew, and every bud
expanded, until within a few days it became beautiful indeed, giving
forth its delicate fragrance, and proving itself the prize I had esteemed
it, as I lifted it from the dark earth of the bogland of northern
Berkshire.
IX
Over the Huckleberry Plains
Thou shalt gaze, at once,
Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds,
And swarming roads, and there on solitudes
That only hear the torrent and the wind.
BRYANT, _Monument Mountain_.
On July 17th, two days before departing from the Hoosac Valley, I was
guided to a group of swamps lying along the summit of the Domelet. The
brow of this mountain is yearly devastated by forest fires, after which
it appears quite barren, save for the trees and bushes protected in the
swamps. A few tall trees, branchless and blackened, stand as sentinels
about the huckleberry plains. But soon the young and tender growth of
oak, chestnut, and birch springs up on these rocky ridges, while the
clearings everywhere are carpeted with low blueberry bushes.
Between the Domelet and the Dome lies a valley known as “Rocky Hollow.”
The ledges of rock, walling it about, bear deep erosions in evidence
of the Ice Age, when a gigantic glacier once crowned and rounded the
Dome. The formation of these deep vales lying at its base is due to the
moraines which flowed down from the ice-capped heights.
The little swamp-like pockets along the summit of the Domelet, where
luxuriant trees locate the moisture of springs, were formed, perchance,
when a deeper lake rolled over this peak.
In ascending the Domelet, we drove around the northern brow of the
mountain, up by the County Road,—frequently called the “Dummy Road” in
Pownal, because a deaf and dumb man once lived in the vicinity. Soon
we turned off eastward, beyond the Dummy Farm, through the low bushes,
until we came to a shady vale. We unhitched our horses from the wagon,
and fastened them to trees; then we proceeded to explore the hills and
plains, carrying pails for berries, and a basket and spade for collecting
roots. The flora of this region appeared luxuriant all along the road,
as well as over the ledges and plains. I found great numbers of plants
of the Pink Moccasin-Flower (_Cypripedium acaule_). The unusually large
leaves were of a deep dark green, with marked veining. Many stems bore
seed-pods, which were the largest capsules for this species I have ever
seen, being an inch and a half long, with circumference in proportion.
The beautiful emerald-green leaves and bright berries of the lily,
_Clintonia borealis_, were almost as common as the piles of sphagnum
and the tall brakes and ferns on the edges of these swamps; yet
everything about recorded the ravages of the recent hailstorms. Very few
seed-capsules could have remained to mature their seed this season, as
most of the plants were either badly bruised, or broken from the root,
causing the ovary of the flower to droop and wither. The low huckleberry
bushes, known as the dwarf black species (_Gaylussacia dumosa_), were
also damaged by the hailstorms, and were without fruit.
[Illustration: =The Yellow Clintonia= (_Clintonia borealis_),
=Rattlesnake Brook Region, Mount Œta, Pownal, Vermont=.]
We came upon numbers of trees shattered by lightning, and blackened pine
stubs and “turnovers” mingled among the beautiful evergreens of the
tangled swamp. Low blueberry bushes, with rich heaps of ashes about their
roots, covered the rolling, rock-bound plains, as far as one could see.
Huckleberries usually thrive in the trail of forest fires. Indeed, the
spring and autumn fires are often started by the huckleberry venders for
the sole purpose of securing a better yield of fruit for supplying the
market. These berries are among the small fruits which have not thus far
taken kindly to cultivation, as has nearly every other wild berry in the
markets to-day.
We found the third swamp eastward marked by the odd spires of the Scrub
Pine (_Pinus divaricata_), and the Red Pine (_Pinus resinosa_), which is
often wrongly called Norway Pine. These evergreen trees were known to
Theophrastus before Christ. There were two kinds, the wild and the garden
trees. Many species of each are described, the pines and spruces not
being distinguished from each other.
I observed also many Dwarf Black or Double Spruces (_Picea
Mariana_),—very dark green trees with pretty cones. The name for this
tree originated with Theophrastus. It became in the Latin _Pinus Mariana_.
Frequently I saw a lone Balsam-Fir tree,—_Abies balsamea_. The name
_Abies_ comes down to us from remote antiquity, since this tree grew
in Greece, and was valued by the learned physicians before Christ for
the balsamic resin found in the bark of young trees. Matthiolus and
Peter Bellon described this substance as bitter and aromatic, similar
to citron-pills. In England, this resin was known to the writers of the
sixteenth century as the Turpentine of Venice. In Canada, where this tree
is abundant, it is called “Balm-of-Gilead Fir,” or “Canada Balsam.” It is
common on the summit of the Dome. The powerful balsamic fluid drawn from
it is now used medicinally. This species resembles the black spruce, save
that it is of a silvery-green color, giving forth its peculiar fragrance,
and producing small blisters on its trunk and branches, which the spruce
does not.
Cedar is not plentiful in the Hoosac Valley region, our only species
being American Arbor Vitæ (_Thuja occidentalis_), often called white
cedar. Northward this tree forms extensive cedar swamps, which are rich
haunts for species of _Orchidaceæ_.
On the border of the third swamp, and in the heart of it as well, grow
High Huckleberry bushes (_Vaccinium corymbosum_). Blueberries are known
in New England as huckleberries, and this common swamp species grows very
tall. These bushes before me were over twelve feet in height. The Dwarf
Low Blueberry (_Vaccinium vacillans_) grows from one to two feet high.
The Early Dwarf species (_Vaccinium Pennsylvanicum_) is from six to
fifteen inches in height, and produces our earliest market blueberries or
huckleberries. The late Dwarf Low Blueberry ripens late in July.
The giant bushes in the swamp were laden with both green and ripe fruit.
The cadet-blue berries hanging side by side with the soft velvety
crimson-purple fruit of Shad-trees (_Amelanchier Canadensis_) made
a pretty dash of color among the rich greens. Most country lads are
familiar with the mountains at this season, and to go “shad-berrying” is
one of their pleasures. In Pownal one hears of shadberry pies and cakes
with happy anticipations.
These berries are fresh and sweet, eaten direct from the bending
branches, but they become as bitter as medicine after being gathered
for any length of time. Their white flowers often appear early in April
and May, and brighten the waste places along with the Pigeon Cherry
blossoms,—better known as Wild Red Cherries (_Prunus Pennsylvanica_).
The flowers of the latter tree are also white, producing small light
red cherries, which delighted flocks of returning pigeons before their
extermination. The generic name _Prunus_ is the Latin for plum or prune,
derived from the Greek for all species commonly known as Sloes, Bullies,
and Snags. The species of Prunus and Amelanchier are members of the Rose
Family, as their miniature rose-blossoms indicate.
The original designations of huckleberry, or whortleberry, are also of
ancient derivation. The species of Vaccinium were known to Virgil under
the title of _Vacinia_,[37] because their berries were little. The
ancient writers recognized the black, white, and red fruited species. The
white was seldom seen, however, while the red also was rare. The true
English name for these berries in the sixteenth century was “whorts”
or “whortleberries.” The black whorts grew commonly in many woods in
England, in June and July.
After wandering through these swamps on the Domelet for two or three
hours, and securing some fine roots of the Pink Moccasin-Flower for
the New Haven garden, we slowly walked back toward our horses in the
shaded vale, up and over ledges and rolling hills, passing a ridge of
outcropping marble. We finally sat a while and drank in the cool mountain
breeze, catching here and there through the trees the varied panorama
of the great world below and the clouds above us. Distant sounds from
human abodes rose to our ears faintly,—such as the engine whistle of the
“Wild-cat” Express as it wound through the deep-cut valley of the Hoosac,
nearly a thousand feet below us, westward beyond Mount Œta. On one of
these marble ridges, along the plains, I found several plants of the
Large Round-Leaved Orchis (_Habenaria orbiculata_).
We drove homeward by way of White Oaks Road,—southward along the entire
summit of the Domelet,—getting an excellent view of the Hoosac and Green
Rivers, following their serpentine windings about the hills and vales
far below us near Williamstown. White Oaks is a remote corner of Pownal,
lying, however, partly in Williamstown in northern Berkshire, a region
locally noted for the earliest arbutus blossoms.
In nearly all the swamps I have visited, I have found a long procession
of flowers marching close upon each other through the seasons,—from the
trailing arbutus and the snowy dogwood blossoms in early April, to the
golden-rod and asters of the late October days. Even as late as December
8th I have found the dainty dandelions and violets running wild with
glee, only to be frozen before sunrise the following morning. It can be
said that in some seasons different flowers bloom nearly every month, in
the Hoosac Highlands, if the _Transcript’s_ reports be true.
“On February 1, 1900, some trailing arbutus was brought from the woods.
There is usually a little strife in the spring for the distinction
of bringing these first flowers, but Mr. Briggs has forestalled all
the flower hunters this year by his January discovery, which is most
unusual.”[38]
I have collected March arbutus in the White Oaks as early as the 12th,
although never in January or February. Indeed, there come many arbutus
days long before April and May, if only we go abroad to realize them in
the warm, sunny glens among the Taconic Hills, where the cold winds never
blow in March.
SECOND SEASON
X
Westville Swamps and Mount Carmel, Connecticut
When, formerly, I have analyzed my partiality for some farm
which I had contemplated purchasing, I have frequently found
that I was attracted solely by a few square rods of impermeable
and unfathomable bog.... That was the jewel which dazzled
me.—THOREAU, _Excursions_.
May the 1st I departed from New York, to find in bloom many of the
earlier flowers that I had missed last year in the Hoosac Highlands.
I followed much the same route through Connecticut as I had taken the
season previous. The country was aglow with the subtle breath of spring
sunshine, that inspires the soul of earth to rise and sprinkle her fields
with pulsating life and song. I started out alone to explore the Bogs of
Westville, where the dainty Grass-Pinks and Pogonias would later bloom.
There is much diversity of soil about New Haven: it proves a
meeting-ground for Southern and Northern species of plant life. The
swampy regions of the Great Salt Meadows produce a foreign vegetation
that emigrates to our shores; while the rocky ridges of the hills about
the City furnish hiding ground for rare ferns and flowers found far
northward.
I rode to the end of the car line, near which I turned off into a
thicket, and over a bridge above the milldam. On either hand broad fields
of marsh-land stretched out to meet the low, rolling hills. To the right,
a path led up the slopes of a cow-pasture, along a little stream to West
Rock. The damp hillside was carpeted with Innocence or Bluets (_Houstonia
cærulea_), and numerous colonies of violets; and amid the moss-grown
hillocks, in the woods, the Dog’s-Tooth Lily (_Erythronium Americanum_)
nodded its yellow bell. This lily, so long designated Dog’s-Tooth Violet,
is a plant having a broad continental range,—found from Nova Scotia to
Florida, and from Maine to Arkansas. In the South it blooms in March, in
the North in May. It grows not only in the low coast hills and valleys,
but is known to thrive at an altitude of 5500 feet in Virginia and in the
North.
The leaves of Dog’s-Tooth Lily resemble a species of Orchis known to
Dioscorides as _Satyrion Erythronium_, from which Linnæus in 1753 coined
the present generic name _Erythronium_, signifying “red,” for the genus
of Dog’s-Tooth Lilies. Wherever the appended term of “Violet” originated
for these lilies is not known. According to Frederick H. Blodgett: “In
one of the old botanies in the library of the Agricultural Department
(Washington), there is a colored plate, illustrating the European species
with the name _Viola dens-canis_, with pen notes, giving the later and
more modern names also.”[39] That the plant was always considered a
lily, however, instead of a violet is evident.
[Illustration:
“_White, innocent twigs of apple, idly swaying,_
_Shed a suave fragrance on the flattered breeze._”
JOHN S. VAN CLEVE.]
Dr. Rembert Dodoens, as early as 1578, thus described it: “This low base
herbe, hath, for the most part but two leaves, speckled with great red
spots, betwixt which springeth up a little tender stalke or stem with one
floure at the top hanging downeward, which hath certaine small leaves
growing together like an arch or haute, and like the wild lily.” (The
_Amarillis_ of the Spaniards.) “The names of this herbe now are called
_Denticulus canis_ and _Dens caninus_, and others call it _Satyrion
Erythronium_, wherewithall notwithstanding it has no similitude.”[40]
It was known to Dioscorides as _Lilium sylvestre_, and Dodoens remarks
that “It may well be called such,” since the flower, when “it hangs
downeward toward the grounde, is much like the wild lilies, saving it is
smaller.”[41]
Dioscorides (23-77 A.D.) knew this plant as _Ephemeron non lethale_,
which was also known in Latin as _Lilium sylvestre_.