ORCHIDACE^: 



This orchid is peculiarly well described by Mr. Mathews 

 as being "an exceedingly handsome, slender species, with 

 lance-shaped leaves and a large, many-flowered spike of 

 showy, golden and orange-yellow flowers with ovate 

 sepals, narrow-fringed petals, and a deeply fringed lip. 

 The spur long and slender." It is indeed a beautiful 

 flower ! 



In speaking of its presence on Nantucket, Mrs. Owen 

 says: "The only plant ever known on the Island was found 

 in bloom by Mrs. E. W. Perry in 1872." Since then Mr. 

 Lorin Dame found about twenty-five plants and recently 

 Mr. Walter Burdick claims to have found it 



ORCHIDACE.E ORCHID FAMILY 



Habenaria lacera, (Michx.) R. Br. 



Greenish-white Ragged Fringed Orchid, 



Ragged Orchid, 

 June-August Green Fringed Orchid. 



Habenaria: for derivation see blephariglottis. 

 Lacera: Latin for torn. 



THE PREFERRED HABITAT: bogs, at times apparently in 

 dry gravel, but where a short search reveals a clay foun- 

 dation. 



THE PLANT: erect; the stem one foot to twenty inches 

 high, unbranched, without hairs, grooved. 



THE LEAVES: erect; light green; alternate; the lower four 

 to six inches long; the upper gradually smaller; without 

 hairs on either surface; acute at the apex; clasping; 

 parallel-veined. 



THE FLOWERS: medium-sized; numerous, in a raceme (one 

 specimen found with a cluster six and a half inches long), 

 on smooth stems; the bracts lanceolate; the sepals ovate, 

 obtuse, the upper slightly broader; the petals linear, about 

 as long as the sepals, obtuse, entire: the lip three parted; 



42 



