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Ladies' Tresses

Spiranthes cernua. Orchis Family.

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' 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.