612 R yd berg : The American Species oi 



place of publication of P. Ghiesbrcchtiana. Rich, et Gal., he has Ann. 

 Sc. Nat. (1845) I. 30, when it should have been III. 3: 30. 

 Habenaria flagellaris S. Wats, has never been published. 



A 



b miU1 b 



credit to the author, and how can it be trusted ? He has given the 



following remarks under his Platanthcra hyperborea : " Es is ein 



ganzlischfruchtloses Bemiihen, die unzahligen Formen dieser weit- 



verbeiteten Art unter Diagnosen von besonderen Species zu fix- 



ieren. Je tiefer man in die Formenreihe eindringt, desto mehr 



verschwimmen die bei der Betrachtung einzelner fur constant gehal- 



tenen Merkmale. Durch die Liberalitat amerikanischer Institute 



und Botaniker verfiigen die europaischen Sammlungen iiber ein 



reiches Material, welches die kritische Beurteilung sehr vvohl ermog- 



licht. Alle bisher beschriebenen 'Arten' stelien ihre Berechti- 



gung auf rein habituelle Merkmale, was bei Orchideen stricte zu 



verwerfen ist." 



It is evident that notwithstanding the statement given above the 

 author has not tried very hard to bring the different forms under dis- 

 tinct diagnoses and he has not penetrated very deep into the series 

 of forms when he did not find the broad thin connective o( Habe- 

 naria sparsifiora and H. brcviflora ; perhaps he had seen neither. 

 It is strange if the herbaria of continental Europe should be rich 

 in North American orchids when our own are far from rich and 

 the representation at Kew is very meager. And still if the author 

 had examined the American material when at Kew, he would have 

 been able to correct some of his mistakes. None of the species 

 so far as I know have been merely based on characters in habit, 

 for in all, the spur, the lip, and the stamen have been described 

 more or less completely, and these are the only organs that give 

 any reliable characters. The habit is mostly the same in all and 

 can be used as a diagnostic character only in a few cases. 



'if oli a 



a 



Der 



* 



Samler und Autor der Pflanze vergleicht sie mit Platanthcra oder 

 nach seiner Schreibart Habenaria sparsifiora Wats. Der Vergleich 

 is nicht glucklisch, denn PL sparsifiora ist eine noch dazu wenig 

 charakteristische Form von hyperborea." Prof. Greene's comparison 



H. brevifolia with H. sparsifi, 



H. 



ifolit 1 



s 



