Part 19

I made several excursions to the heart of Rattlesnake Swamp and Rattlesnake Ledge, between May 7th and 15th, searching for Trailing Arbutus. I courted the Swamp of Oracles and the Glen of Comus, watching the buds unfold. The woods were bare and leafless, the paths and dry-brook beds were flooded with sunshine. There is a desolate expression to these deep swamps in early spring, before the tender green leaves of trees and budding flowers burst forth. The birds, however, are here, and their song tells us that it is spring instead of the Indian summer of late autumn. These awakening days of the sleeping woodlands reminded one of the death of the flowers in November. Equally sad is the birth and death of the flowers. The sod steams with the warm southern sunlight pouring upon it until, behold, a week later the green, luxuriant foliage hides all the rocky paths in dense shades, and sprinkles dainty stars and clinging vines over all the ruins of the autumn’s faded stalks and leaves. May holds greater charm and more silent mysteries than the overflowing joy of full-grown June.

I wandered on through the winding paths, finding them draped with mosses and Goldthread blossoms and Painted Trillium. I continued daily to search the woods through and through for the first sight of the Pink Moccasin-Flower. I found three species of Cypripedium on May 15th, and was a little curious to observe how the race would end in their unfolding. There were the rare Ram’s-Head, the Pink and the Large Yellow Moccasin-Flowers in bud. The Pink Cypripedium was the first to open, upon the 19th, while on the same day also the Large Yellow Moccasin-Flower burst into bloom, dropping its long, twisting side petals gracefully beside the stump of a hemlock tree fallen across Ball Brook. The Ram’s-Head, which is supposed to be the earliest Cypripedium to bloom, was not so fortunate. Venturing where it stood among the Amidon Pines one sunny morning, I found the bud still sheathed in the tender green bract-like leaf, laid low and withering upon the ground beside the ruined stem. I picked it up and wondered what or who could have brought about this tragedy. The bract, containing the bud, appeared cut from the stem as with a keen-edged knife. As I held it, I observed a large worm concealed within the plicate folds of the bracted leaf, amid the musky sweetness of the bud. It was round and emerald green, and unlike most worms was possessed of a great degree of spryness; for before my senses were astir, it had dropped to the ground, wriggling out of sight among the leaves and earth at my feet. I poked about, hoping to follow its trail, but to no avail.

“These dim-aisled forests His cathedrals, where The pale nun Silence tiptoes, velvet-shod, And Prayer kneels with tireless, parted lids.”

ELLA HIGGINSON.]

That this rare Cypripedium has a vile destroyer in this worm, is evident. I felt that I should like to know more about the worm’s life, and why it seeks the rarest species of Cypripedium in North America to feast upon. Perhaps this may account for this flower’s rarity in Pownal, as well as throughout its continental range. I have observed the worm among the Ram’s-Heads in Amidon’s Pines during the past two seasons.

The budded plants of this species in Witch Hollow were also blasted in embryo this season. The two buds observed turned brown and withered on the stem, while yet very tiny, leaving the bract perfectly intact. Some plants, however, were untouched by the destroying worm. They were without doubt too young to bloom, as it requires four or five seasons before seedling Cypripediums produce perfect blossoms in their native haunts.

The seeds of orchids are minute, mostly “spindle shaped,” are found in great numbers, and resemble fine saw-dust. The ovules of the Orchid Family mature slowly, and as far as scientific observations count, in the tests made with the cultivated species, it is said the seeds are a year in coming to maturity. These fertile seeds need several months in which to germinate, requiring, as will be seen, some years to produce seedlings old enough to blossom from the self-sowing capsules of our wild native orchids. Furthermore, a certain temperature and continuous moisture are absolutely necessary to produce seedlings. Our variable Northern climate is one of the natural causes of hindrance to the production of native seedlings of this sensitive family. Continuous moisture does not prevail long enough to promote perfect germination of the thousands of seeds annually produced. They die in embryo from lack of moisture during dry seasons; or if developed, are frozen out in the ice-capped swamps by our long, harsh winters; or in the tender seasons of their seedling-hood the following years, are dwarfed and die from drought. This, in part, is the explanation of the lack of natural seedlings in our native orchid haunts. Adding to this the destructiveness of man, the beasts of the fields, worms, and storms, and the tardiness of insects in fertilization, a hard struggle lies in the perpetuation of the family’s future generations.

Orchids are spoken of as the “weeds of the tropics”; notwithstanding their devastation by the present orchid craze,—which far outstrips the tulip mania in Holland two hundred and fifty years ago,—in regions where continuous heat and moisture prevail, germination of their fertile seeds is rapid and natural.

May Showers and White Moccasin-Flowers

If a man walk in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded a loafer; but if he spend his whole day as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making earth bare before her time, he is esteemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.—THOREAU, Letters.

There is something charming about an unwearied rain in spring. I chose a day upon which rain was falling to journey through the swamps, observing my orchid buds. The clouds would lift now and then with sudden brightening, although the gentle patter of the rain was constant. The wind scarcely stirred the leaves. Nature was quiet in her weeping, as a heart that has a grievance which it does not care to share with any one. The meadows grew green, the buds expanded, and the heart of May began to pulsate and sing new songs.

I started out to visit the Glen of Comus, but found the underbrush too laden with rain. I then decided to go through the fields and seek the Chalk Pond colonies. Over the hills lowered a heavy fog, which, as the rain slackened, would for a time lift again, showing the blue peaks in the distance. I turned westward from the glen, through Amidon’s Pines. I had soon passed beyond the limits of this sheltering wood, making a gradual ascent through the raspberry pastures of John-Fallow.

The higher I climbed the harder it poured. However, I arrived among the low white birch saplings and berry bushes. Here I managed to shake the rain off them, becoming as bedraggled as though I had waded in a stream. My umbrella began to leak, and my cap and hair were being soaked, the water actually running down my face. Entering the deeper underwood of birches, I aroused a flock of sheep and their lambs. They ran bleating after me, asking for salt. A mother followed me closely, stamped the earth with her tiny feet, showing her petulance and fear; although she did not turn and run from me as I ventured nearer, but rubbed her nose against my hand.

I now began descending the western slopes of John-Fallow, and was in sight of the woods closing about Witch Hollow. Upon entering the thicket, I soon found my colonies of Orchis spectabilis, which were not yet unfolded, although it was May 20th. The Cypripediums had come in far ahead of them this season.

The group of Ram’s-Head also disappointed me, the buds having been blasted in embryo. The plants, however, looked healthy and promising.

Chilled through as I was on my way out of the woods, I thought of stopping at the nearest house on Butternut Lane for a drink of hot milk. I refrained, however, because of my fog-covered garments and the curiosity I might arouse in the neighborhood. Onward I trudged another mile or two, up through the pastures, across the old Welch Farm, following the grass-grown road that originally led from Mount Œta to the valley of the Hoosac, during Revolutionary days.

I had been out about four hours, and it was time I sought shelter, since I had waded through the tall grasses and bushes, regardless of the rain upon their leaves. Once in the house, I realized the comfort of possessing warm, dry garments.

On May 23d I made a journey to Rattlesnake Swamp. Arbutus was still in blossom near the hemlocks,—late clusters, indeed, hiding in the moss at the feet of small spruces, where the ice and snow had lingered latest.

The children in District Fourteen delight in surprising me with strange flowers. Among these I frequently find rare species of plants to name and identify for them. A delicate spray of the Purple-Flowered Clematis was brought to me recently. This vine is rare hereabout, growing only in rocky woods about the Rabbit Plain, and along the Gulf Road of Witch Hollow.

Children in the country districts are the first nature students in spring. In May and June the woods and fields become veritable classrooms in which Nature alone presides as instructor. A dense oak and pine forest formerly sheltered the vale near the schoolhouse, where the children seldom dared to wander without their teacher. The wood was dark and full of the twilight shades of the virgin forest trees of our New England hills.

In May, many seasons ago, the Purple-Flowered Clematis (Atragene Americana) grew abundant in the heart of this rocky wood, covering, in one instance, a bush six feet high with its graceful vine. This plant is rare from Maine to Minnesota. It ranges northward to Hudson Bay, and southward to Virginia, often ascending great heights. It is reported in the Catskills at an altitude of three thousand feet. There are but three species of this genus found natively in the North Temperate Zone, one being reported for the Rocky Mountain region, the other farther to the northwest coast of America. The common Virgin’s-Bower (Clematis Virginiana) grows also in rocky places, covering roadside walls and bordering swamps and river banks in July and August.

Later in the autumn, this species is very attractive. The seed-pods burst and produce a light, feathery down—little wings to aid the seeds in their flight, like those of the dandelion and milkweed. The seed-capsules of the Purple-Flowered Clematis also produce tails like the plumes of a feather.

Several species of Clematis were known to the ancients in Christ’s day. The name originated with Dioscorides, and was used to designate all climbing vines. He knew three kinds under the generic name of Aristolochia, named in honor of Aristotle. The “branched vine” with “deepe violet floures,” was called Aristolochia clematites. Peter Bellon of ye olden time remarks that this plant grew in the mountains of Ida in Crete, or Candie. Carolus Clusius reported it as growing among the bushes and briars about the city of Hispalis, or Civill, in Spain, before the sixteenth century.

I visited Oak Hill Cemetery on May 29th,—a very good place to observe the early flowers of the woods about the valley. The country folk come here with their laurels for Decoration Day, as Milton came to his “Lycidas,” “to empurple all the ground with vernal flowers.” Here may be seen the pink azalea, the marsh marigolds—those golden-cups of Caltha,—violets, and painted trilliums amid the bunches of pink and golden moccasin-flowers, brought here in abundance by the school children.

On June 5th I sought the swamps of Etchowog. I followed down through the Glen of Comus, in search of the great colony of Pink Moccasin-Flowers. I found them in full bud,—two hundred in number, as formerly. As I entered the hollow, I found in the middle of the path a Small Round-Leaved Orchis (Habenaria Hookeriana).

This region is being slowly despoiled of its stately pines. I saw fresh scars of the axe among them. Three first-growth trees were laid low, piled on the side of the road.

I followed, as usual, the path through the Swamp of Oracles beside Ball Brook, leading out through the clearings of Ball Farm. Here I waded through Iris Swamp beyond, coming out to the pasture-land of Kimball Farm.

This season, many changes have occurred in the Kimball Bogs, the hillsides closing in about them having been almost sheared of their trees. This results in flooding the heart of the swamp with sunshine, and may in time dry up the growth of the beautiful moss known as Sphagnum, and also destroy the Buckbeans. The cows were browsing among the small tamaracks, and no signs of the Showy Queen of the Moccasin-Flowers were visible hereabout this June. The Tall Green Orchis (Habenaria hyperborea) grew luxuriantly in a pool over the fence near the clearing. Purple Trilliums were also very abundant along my path. I passed out through the vale, keeping the winding road until I reached the brow of the orchard beyond, which was in full bloom.