110 Rhodora [JUNE 
collections and careful studies to this end. Unless this plan is followed, 
the hydnum with the Gorgon locks is likely to remain for most of us 
in more senses than one a mythical plant. 
ON SOME VARIATIONS OF SPIRANTHES CERNUA.—During the last week 
of September, 1898, I noted in an alluvial meadow in Williamstown, 
Massachusetts, some variations of the common Spiranthes cernua, 
which, so far as I am aware, have never been recorded. The observa- 
tions I was then able to make showed that there exist apparently three 
fairly distingishable forms of this plant. 
The alluvial meadow where these observations were made is bordered 
on one side for a distance of about half a mile by a swamp. On visiting 
the locality the past fall I noticed that the plant growing rather profusely 
along the edge of the swamp differed in some notable points from the 
Spiranthes cernua with which I was hitherto familiar. The most 
obvious difference was that of color. The ordinary .S. cernua, as I 
have found it in various parts of this, as well as other regions, is a pure 
white, or very nearly so, but the present form was a very pronounced 
yellow or cream-color. In this yellow form the rich fragrance of the 
ordinary white plant was invariably lacking ; and the lip of the flower was 
shorter, broader, and more rounded, or in some cases almost two-lobed. 
The leaves also appeared quite distinct, both in shape and structure. 
The plant appearing through the whole meadow was the yellow form. 
There were, however, confined to a small area of a few square rods, a 
few specimens of the ordinary white fragrant form, and some distance 
away there was a similar area of an apparently intermediate plant, 
white-flowered, but without fragrance, and with all the other character- 
istics of the yellow-flowered form. Each type was confined to its own 
area, and, so far as observed, the characters of each seemed fixed. 
Further observations are needed, however, to establish this point, for, 
unfortunately, I was not able at the time to examine the plants more in 
detail. 
I have very recently learned that similar observations on this species 
have been made about Manchester, New Hampshire, by Mr. F. W. 
Batchelder, and on Mount Desert Island, by Mr. E. L. Rand, and it 
is hoped that others may bear in mind this variation during the coming 
fall. — A. LERov ANDREWS. 
