40 GYNANDRIA— MONANDRIA. Listera. 



L. Nidus avis. Hook. Scot. 253. Lond. t. 58. 



Epipactis Nidus avis. Sw. Orch. 66. Willd. Sp. PI. v. 4. 87. Comp. 



ed. 4. 144. Forst. Tonbr. 100. 

 E. n. 1290. Hall. Hist. v. 2. 149. t. 37. 2. 

 Ophrys Nidus avis. Limi. Sp. PI. 1339. Fl. Br. 931. Engl. Bet. 



v.l.t.AS. Fl.Dan.t. 181. Ehrh. Phijtoph. 56. Purt.v.2.426. 

 Orchis abortiva fusca. Bauh. Pin. 86. Rudb. Ehjs.v. 2. 218./. 1. 

 Nidus avis. RaiiSyn.3S2. Dalech. Hist. 1073. f. Lob. Ic. 195./. 



Best. Hort. Eyst. cEsttv. ord. 4. t. 4./. 3. 

 Neottia. Dod. Pempt. 553./. 

 Pseudo-leimodovon. Clus. Hist. v. 1 . 270./. 

 Satyrium abortivuni, sive Nidus avis. Ger. Em. 228. f. 

 S. nonum. Trag. Hist. 795./ 



In shady woods, especially beech, on a chalky or loamy soil. 



In Kent and Sussex. Ray, Hudson. In many parts of Scotland. 

 Hooker. I have found it in several places in the north of Eng- 

 land, as well as in Norfolk and Suffolk occasionally j but most 

 abundantly in the fine beech vi^oods about Hurley, Berks. 



Perennial. May, June. 



Root of innumerable, crowded, tufted, simple, thick, cylindrical, 

 whitish, fleshy knobs, or radicles ; for with their true nature no- 

 body is as yet acquainted. They grow imbedded among dead 

 leaves, at the roots of trees ; but I could never, any more than 

 Dr. Hooker, detect a parasitical attachment. The whole herb 

 indeed has the true pallid hue, destitute of green, peculiar to 

 parasitical plants in general, as the late Mr. Dryander long ago 

 observed ; and to which remark the generality of Orchidece in 

 India are no exception, their radicles being mostly nourished by 

 rotten bark, not by the living tree. Stem solitary, erect, simple, 

 angular, hollow, without leaves, but clothed with tubular, lax, 

 membranous, obtuse, alternate sheaths. Cluster cylindrical, 

 many-flowered, dense, except at the bottom, smooth. Bracteas 

 oblong, small. Fl. pale brown in every part. Cat. and pet. 

 moderately and equally spreading. Lip concave at the base ; 

 cloven at the extremity into 2 blunt, rounded, widely spreading 

 lobes. Column cylindrical, without any hood. Anth. at the 

 summit, in front, elliptical, convex, of 2 close, linear, parallel 

 cells, depositing the yellow, finely granulated, simple, oblong 

 masses of pollen on the back of the oblong upper lip of the 

 stigma, the under lip of which is short and rounded. Caps, oval, 

 with thick, almost woody, ribs and valves, crowned by the per- 

 manent column. Seeds numerous, minute, obovate, with a close 

 tunic, not elongated at either end. 



A recent comparison of this with L. ovata has satisfied me of the 

 propriety of Mr. Brown's decision respecting its genus, and that 

 the anther is no more a terminal lid in one than in the other. 

 Neither does the nectary accord so well with Epipactis as with 

 Listera. 



