Bog-trotting for orchids

During many seasons spent in the Hoosac Valley, it has been a source of great pleasure to me to trace mountain streams through moss-grown ravines to their beginnings, and to exp...

Whenever I come to the Hoosac Valley, I enter, if possible, by way of this tunnel. I seem thus to close away the outer world, and to penetrate a new realm hidden here in the sec...

Under the pines on the border of the swamp I rested, finding the while tender young Wintergreens (_Gaultheria_), and many edible red berries, called Checkerberries, fruit of _Ga...

I call the old time back: I bring my lay In tender memory of the summer day When, where our native river lapsed away, We dreamed it over, while the thrushes made Songs of their...

On June 10th I drove into the Chalk Pond region, on the “Witch Hollow,” or Gulf Road leading to the Centre-of-the-Town; and hitching old Bonny, took a circle around the peat and...

On June 21st, with Major I walked down through the Swamp of Oracles in District Fourteen, along Ball Brook to the Kimball Farm bogs, and so on once more to the Bogs of Etchowog...

Reaching the mill, I hastened around the bend in the road. A little to the south of Arethusa’s Spring, and scarcely five feet to the left of the path, under some willows, I saw...

My basket was now laden with choice species, including those of the Ram’s-Head, the Showy Orchis, and two species of Habenaria, a sister genus of _Orchis spectabilis_. The local...

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 b...

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 s...

I discovered many beautiful plants of the Prickly Pear, or Indian Fig (_Opuntia Opuntia_) of the Cactus Family. It was named for a town in Greece where it grew. This strange rel...

In the heart of the swamp I was attracted by an uprooted tree, about whose stump stagnant water had settled, now reflecting the shadows and sunshine as a miniature lake. Several...

For the greater part of the valley, Wash-Tub Brook flows through open pasture lands. The bed is broad and shallow, strewn with numerous small lime-rock boulders drifted down fro...

Beyond the Howling Swamp, an interesting glacial hill rises, dividing the swamp from the broader valley of Ball Brook beyond. The lower southern brow of this hill had been erode...

My companions and I had climbed the slippery glen to where Thoreau commenced his ascent, and a tiny rivulet slipped over the rocks, which had formerly been dimpled with miniatur...

In the Hoosac Valley autumn is a season of glory. Late August produces the gorgeous colored tiger lilies. The swampy meadows in September are brightened with the delicate greeni...

=Flowers= greenish-white, many in spiked raceme. =Labellum= oblong-linear, white, spur long. =Sepals= and =petals= ⅓ to ½ as long as labellum. Sepals spreading, petals smaller....

=Flowers= 2 or solitary, greenish-yellow, peduncle ⅙-⅓ inch long. =Labellum= crested over the whole face and lobes. =Sepals= and =petals= equal. =Stem= 8-10 inches high. =Leaves...

=Flowers= in club-shaped raceme 1-3 inches long, 1 inch thick; greenish, minute, ¹⁄₁₂ inch long, pedicels slender, spreading, ¼-½ inch long. =Labellum= broad, 3-toothed at apex....

[93] The common name, Putty-Root, arose from the putty-like consistency of the adhesive substance of the old corms or bulbs; used to mend broken china. The name Adam-and-Eve ori...

Hoosac Valley, 6, 8, 115, 118, 185, 202, 213, 233; narrowest portion of, likened to the Pass of Thermopylæ of Greece, 96; wars of the, 96; morning mist of, 97; view of, from the...

Thoreau, Henry D., quoted, 10, 11, 15, 26, 84, 102, 125, 137, 157, 167, 183, 203, 231, 235, 237; admiration for the location of Williams College, 10, 11; on walking, 38; on Grea...