Cranichideae and Spirantheae makes one wonder if de- 
pendence on resupination or its opposite has not resulted 
in forced and unnatural alliances. 
Harry Bolus in his treatment of South African or- 
chids recognized as a section-character (§. Orthocarpa) 
the untwisted ovary in several species of Disa, a genus 
in which the flowers are preponderantly resupinate. Then 
he found in Disa elegans Reichb.f. (a species which he 
referred to §. Orthocarpa) that the ‘‘nearly posticous po- 
sition’” of the labellum is caused by a complete twist of 
the ovary. (Orchids of South Africa 1 (1896) t. 35) In 
this case the value of the presence or absence of ovarian 
torsion with regard to species of Disa seems to be severe- 
ly weakened and of very questionable significance in the 
recognition of sections. 
A more obvious peculiarity than twisting of the ova- 
ries is torsion of the rachis when it twists either in a clock- 
wise or counter-clockwise direction. Given equal weight 
with resupination as a diagnostic character, variation in 
the trend of spiral torsion would yield recognizable va- 
rieties in Spiranthes gracilis and S.cernua in which spe- 
cies the raceme twists one way or the other in different 
plants ; but nobody, I think, would seriously employ this 
difference to establish subtribes, sections or species, even 
if it so happened that plants exhibiting one type or the 
other of spirality were to be found restricted to widely 
separated geographical regions. 
In 1926, my colleague, Professor M.L. Fernald, re- 
instated from synonymy, as Malaaxis brachypoda, an 
American orchid described as Microstylis brachypoda by 
Asa Gray in 1885. This concept is set apart from its ally, 
Malaaxis monophyllos of Eurasia, because the flowers are 
resupinate. Undoubtedly in contrasting plants with re- 
supinate and non-resupinate flowers a botanist accus- 
tomed to our native species with a pendent labellum 
[ 169 | 
