Ladies' Tresses Orchid My morning route, which is also my morning routine, takes me through a nearby meadow, and over several months of trekking, I've come to know all the plants I'm likely to find. Mostly, of course, there are the grasses, but there are a few wildflowers, chiefly clovers, black swallow-wort, milkweed, and Queen Anne's Lace. Over the last few days, however, I noticed this newcomer: a small but stunning orchid whose exquisite white flowers corkscrew around the nearly leafless stem. It's about a foot tall and, given the flower shape, one of a group of plants collectively known as Ladies' Tresses. No doubt, such a name is politically incorrect, but it belongs to history, so I'll leave it at that. I have a copy of Paul Martin Brown's definitive Wild Orchids of the Northeastern United States: A Field Guide, and the plant seems to be either Spiranthes vernalis, which can be quite tall (up to two feet), or S. tuberosa, a pint-sized cousin. In either case, it's a pretty discovery.