(A) Pogonia; Snake-mouth (Pogonia ophioglossoides). Snake-mouth is delicate, pure pink in color, and slightly fragrant. Its pollen is not in stemmed masses but is showered on the back of a visiting insect as he backs out of the flower. The stem is from 8 to 13 inches high, bearing at its top a single flower; sepals and petals are similar in shape; the lip is spatulate, prominently crested with yellow and white, and toothed and lacerated. About midway of the flower stem is a single oval leaf and just below the flower is a smaller bract-like one. Pogonia grows in swamps from Newfoundland to Minn. and southward to the Gulf of Mexico, flowering during June and July.
(B) Nodding Pogonia (P. trianthophora) has a leafy stem from 2 to 8 inches high. From two to eight small oval leaves alternately clasp the stem; the flowers, which number from one to six, appear singly from the axils of the upper leaves, nodding on slender peduncles; they are small, magenta-pink, and with ovate, three-lobed lips. It is locally distributed from Me. to Wisc. and southward.
(A) Whorled Pogonia (Pogonia verticillata) has a single flower on a long stem, 8 to 12 in. high; the sepals are greenish-yellow, long, linear, with the edges rolled or folded together; the petals are oblong-lanceolate and purple; the lip is also purple, wedge-shaped, three-lobed and with a hairy crest, down the middle. Five lanceolate and stemless leaves are in a whorl about the stem just below the flower. It is a peculiar, inconspicuous plant found locally in moist woods from Me. to Wisc. and southward.
(B) Showy Orchis (Orchis spectabilis) is a charming early-blooming orchid found in flower from April to June in moist woods, often under hemlock trees. Two broad, ovate, deeply ribbed, beautiful leaves sheath the flower scape at its base. The four to twelve flowers are loosely racemed at the top of the scape which is from 5 to 10 in. high. The magenta-pink petals and sepals are united to form a hood; the lip, curving abruptly downward, is broadly ovate and white; each flower has a short spur and is bracted. This species is found throughout the U.S.
(A) Rattlesnake Plantain (Epipactis pubescens) is a common orchid having beautiful leaves, radiating from the fleshy, creeping rootstalk. The scape is 6 to 15 in. high and carries at its top densely flowered sepals and petals united to form a hood. It is found in the whole of the U. S., flowering in July and August.
(B) Ladies Tresses (Spiranthes cernua) is so named because of the braided arrangement of its flowers. The leaves are few, grass-like, sheathing the scape near its base. The scape is 6 to 15 in. high, has several small bracts, and ends in a 2- or 3-ranked spiral raceme of white or creamy flowers; petals and upper sepal joined, lateral sepals lanceolate; lip ovate-oblong with a rough tip. Common in moist fields or woods from Me. to Minn. and southward.
Slender Ladies Tresses (S. gracilis) is slender, has its flowers in a single-ranked 1-sided or slightly twisted raceme; lip green, with a white wrinkled margin. Leaves small, ovate basal. Found in dry ground from N. S. to Manitoba and southward.
