24 The Ohio Naturalist. [Vol. X, No. 2, 



THE ORCHIDS OF OHIO. 



Kate R. Blair. 



People in general know little of orchids because they do not 

 come in one's way as plants ordinarily do but must be sought for. 

 They are most widely distributed in the damp and wooded 

 regions of the world, reaching their greatest development in the 

 tropics where many of them are brilliantly flowered epiphytes. 

 In temperate regions they are terrestrial plants drawing their 

 nourishment directly or indirectly from the soil. They are 

 perennial herbs, many with root mvcorrhizas, and on this 

 account some of them are without green foliage leaves, depending 

 entirely for their food supply on the fungus growing on their 

 roots. Most of them are rare plants and grow only in special 

 habitats, and because of their mutualistic habits thcA' can not 

 easily be raised in gardens since it is difficult to produce a 

 suitable substratum in which the fungus can develop. 



Twenty-one genera and thirty-seven species of orchids are 

 reported from Ohio with two or three others that are doubtful. 

 The species most widely distributed are: Galeorchis specta- 

 bilis, Aplectrum spicatum, Blephariglottis ps^xodes, Gyros- 

 tachys cernua, Limodorum tuberosum, Perularia flava, Pogonia 

 ophioglossoides, Triphora trianthophora, and Blephariglottis 

 lacera. 



Orchids are valued chiefly because they are beautiful though 

 a few are also useful. Vanilla is extracted from the fruit of a 

 climbing orchid in Mexico; and the leaves of some species in 

 Madagascar are used for making tea. Their flowers are among 

 the most unique in the plant kingdom, and the parts are highly 

 specialized, with peculiar adaptations for insect pollination. 

 Among the Ohio genera having some species with showy flowers 

 the following deserve mention: Cypripedium, Galeorchis, Ble- 

 phariglottis, Arethusa, Pogonia and Leptorchis. Some of the 

 Cypripediums are known to be poisonous to the touch. C. 

 reginae is poisonous to the skin much like poison ivy. At least 

 fifty per cent of people are susceptible. C. parviflorum is also 

 poisonous but less so than the former, while the variety, hir- 

 sutum, is said to be as poisonous as C. reginae. 



Orchidaceae. Orchid Family. 



Perennial plants, commonly succulent, arising from bulbs or 

 corms, or from fibrous or tuberous roots, with entire, often 

 grass-like or bract-like leaves. 



Flowers perfect, solitary, or in spikes or racemes, epigvnous, 

 zygomorphic, pentacylic, of a modified trimerous type, with a 

 unilocular ovulary, specialized pollen masses, and numerous 

 ovules on three parietal placentae; one of the petals usually 



