retained in the genus. For those plants with a dense, sceptre-like 
inflorescence, more or less sigmoid lip and laterally toothed ros- 
tellum the name Skeptrostachys is proposed here. 
Monotypic genera are always frowned upon by botanists, and 
are often regarded as by-products of extreme splittings. Person- 
ally I look upon them in the orchids as inevitable, peripheral 
products of anagenesis, i.e., the evolutionary refinements within 
a main phylogenetic branch of the family, in this case, the Neot- 
tioideae. Dressler recently elevated the whole Spiranthes com- 
plex to a separate subfamily, Spiranthoideae (Selbyana 5: 
197-206, Dec. 1979). His new system of classification—so aptly 
summed up by Schultes in his review in The American Orchid 
Society Bulletin—is remarkable, among others, in combining 
heterogeneous, diverse elements into NEW SUBFAMILIES, 
often with old names, such as Neottia and Orchis into Orchidol- 
deae, to mention but one. Dressler summarized his new system 
in a diagrammatic presentation (p. 203, fig. 3), which, indeed, is 
reminescent of a supernova, where the fragments of the original 
components are thrown out and randomly combined to give 
birth toa NEW CREATION. 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
With sincere thanks and appreciation I wish to acknowledge 
the patient kindness of my friends and colleagues in the Ames 
Orchid Herbarium, Herman R. Sweet and Walter Kittredge, for 
their ever helpful criticisms as I burdened them step by step 
throughout the preparation of this study. Admittedly the time 
and effort spent on the preparation of this generic revision is 
hardly apparent from a casual perusal of these pages. 
The financial help in the form of a grant from the American 
Orchid Society’s Fund for Education and Research to defray in 
part publication costs is here gratefully acknowledged. Similar 
support has also been received from an anonymous donor whose 
generosity is greatly appreciated. 
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