Of the ten species named as rarest among
American endogenous plants by Dr. Gray, in his valuable essay on the
statistics of our Northern Flora, all but one are Orchids. And even an
abundant species, like the present, retains the family traits in its
person, and never loses its high-born air and its delicate veining.
I know a grove where it can be gathered by the hundreds within a
half-acre, and yet I never can divest myself of the feeling that each
specimen is a choice novelty. But the actual rarity occurs, at least
in this region, when one finds the smaller and more beautiful Yellow
Moccason-Flower,--_parviflorum_,--which accepts only our very choicest
botanical locality, the "Rattlesnake Ledge" on Tatessit Hill,--and may,
for aught I know, have been the very plant which Elsie Venner laid upon
her school-mistress's desk.

June is an intermediate month between the spring and summer flowers. Of
the more delicate early blossoms, the Dwarf Cornel, the Solomon's-Seal,
and the Yellow Violet still linger in the woods, but rapidly make way
for larger masses and more conspicuous hues. The meadows are gorgeous
with Clover, Buttercups, and Wild Geranium; but Nature is a little chary
for a week or two, maturing a more abundant show. Meanwhile one
may afford to take some pains to search for another rarity, almost
disappearing from this region,--the lovely Pink Azalea. It still grows
plentifully in a few sequestered places, selecting woody swamps to hide
itself; and certainly no shrub suggests, when found, more tropical
associations. Those great, nodding, airy, fragrant clusters, tossing far
above one's head their slender cups of honey, seem scarcely to belong to
our sober zone, any more than the scarlet tanager which sometimes builds
its nest beside them. They appear bright exotics, which have wandered
into our woods, and seem too happy to feel any wish for exit. And just
as they fade, their humbler sister in white begins to bloom, and carries
on through the summer the same intoxicating fragrance.

But when June is at its height, the sculptured chalices of the Mountain
Laurel begin to unfold, and thenceforward, for more than a month,
extends the reign of this our woodland queen. I know not why one should
sigh after the blossoming gorges of the Himalaya, when our forests are
all so crowded with this glowing magnificence,--rounding the tangled
swamps into smoothness, lighting up the underwoods, overtopping the
pastures, lining the r