Stem.—Leafy below, leafy-bracted above, six to twenty inches high. Leaves.—Linear-lance-shaped, the lowest elongated. Flowers.—White, fragrant, the lips wavy or crisped; growing in slender spikes.
This pretty little orchid is found in great abundance in September and October. The botany relegates it to “wet places,” but I have seen dry upland pastures as well as low-lying swamps profusely flecked with its slender, fragrant spikes. The braided appearance of these spikes would easily account for the popular name of ladies’ tresses; but we learn that the plant’s English name was formerly “ladies’ traces,” from a fancied resemblance between its twisted clusters and the lacings which played so important a part in the feminine toilet. I am told that in parts of New England the country people have christened the plant “wild hyacinth.”
The flowers of S. gracilis are very small, and grow in a much more slender, one-sided spike than those of S. cernua. They are found in the dry woods and along the sandy hill-sides from July onward.
PLATE XXXIII
LADIES’ TRESSES.—S. cernua.
Green-flowered Milkweed.
Asclepias verticillata. Milkweed Family.
Stem.—Slender, very leafy to the summit. Leaves.—Very narrow, from three to six in a whorl. Flowers.—Greenish-white, in small clusters at the summit and along the sides of the stem. Fruit.—Two erect pods, one often stunted.
This species is one commonly found on dry uplands, especially southward, with flowers resembling in structure those of the other milkweeds. (Pl. .)
Groundsel Tree.
Baccharis halimifolia. Composite Family (p. [13]).
A shrub from six to twelve feet high. Leaves.—Somewhat ovate and wedge-shaped, coarsely toothed on the upper entire. Flower-heads.—Whitish or yellowish, composed of unisexual tubular flowers, the stamens and pistils occurring on different plants.