That it has remained so long undiscovered in this country, and 
that it is still considered so rare on the Continent, is due to the 
fact of its having no foliage and no conspicuous colours to at- 
tract attention; or it may have been passed by for some of our 
other colourless and aphyllous plants. Once known to be a 
native of Britain, other stations may be expected to be soon 
detected. Various localities are given in the middle and north of 
Europe, from Switzerland, Austria, the Caucasian Provinces, to 
Sweden, and westward as far as Lake Baikal, and the River 
_ Irkut, Province of Tunka. It was first known as a Siberian 
plant, and admirably described and figured by Gmelin (/. ¢.) 
under the name of “ Hpipogum*,” a little more than a century 
ago. Linnzus referred the plant to Limodorum, and called the 
species Epipog¢um,—quoting the synonym of Gmelin also incor- 
rectly as Hpipogium. ‘This spelling of the word has by authors 
been adopted, till Richard, in his ‘ Annotationes,’ as quoted by 
Lindley, named the plant “ Epipogum Gmelini.” At length Lede- 
bour gave the generic name the usual termination, “Zpipogon ;” 
but he refers to authors whom I have not the means of consult- 
ing “ Patze, Meyer et Elkan Flora d. Provinz Preussen, p. 93,” 
in justification of the change. I have adopted the same 
as the most correct, and quite in accordance with that of the 
original author. Mr. Brown however, in his Prodromus Nov. 
Holl. p. 330, under Gastrodium, is the first of the later botanists 
(1810) to allude to Hpipogium as a genus: “ Affinitatem haud 
levem habet cum Apipogio (quod Limodorum Epipogium, Sw.), 
presertim anthera decidua cum polline e particulis elastice cohe- 
rentibus, necnon stigmate ad basin columne elongate sito.”’— 
Lindley indeed places it in his Division Gastropiua# of his fifth 
Tribe ARETHUSE. : 
It is observed by M. Schlauter, in Fred. Nees’ ‘Flora Euro- 
pea,’ that the plant does not appear annually in the same spot, 
but every two years: the swollen branches of the root eventually 
“senepa new flower-stems, and requiring two years to be per- 
ected. 
Descr. Parasitic? Root a mass of thick, branching, fleshy 
fibres, very much resembling that of Corallorhiza innata, the 
apices of the branches often swollen (said to be incipient flower- 
stems). Stems a span or more high, arising from a thickened 
branch, or portion of the root, swollen a little above the base, 
and there articulated; the rest of the stem is erect, terete, of a 
pale reddish or tawny colour, speckled with red, of a fleshy or 
almost waxy texture, and sheathed with three or four membra- 
naceous, inconspicuous scales, terminating in an erect raceme 
_ * “ Epigogum dixi, quia barba (by which he meang the labellum) hujus floris 
inverso ordine disposita est.” Gmed. 
