292 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



Erect in habit with a small solid bulb, which is 

 above ground like an epiphyte, the stem is five- 

 angular above, swollen, with a sheath of white scales, 

 which give rise to a new plant laterally. The leaves 

 are radical, few (three to four), inversely ovate, 

 oblong, with a fringe of cellular bulbils giving rise to 

 new plants, and hollow, acute. 



The flowers are in a long, loose, slender, dense 

 spike, yellowish-green, small, numerous. The bracts 

 are very small. The outer perianth-segments are 

 ovate, or broadly lance-shaped, spreading, and two 

 are upturned or erect, the third turned down. The 

 inner segments or petals are linear, oblong, like the 

 sepals, spreading laterally, with an erect, superior, 

 three-veined lip as long as the petals, shorter than 

 the sepals, acute, concave below, and at the base 

 encircling the columns. There is no spur. The 

 waxy pollen-masses are in two pairs, connected, fixed 

 to a gland at the end of the column, the anther 

 hinged on to its tip. The ovary is on a twisted stalk 

 which untwists when it is ripe. 



This is one of the smaller Orchids, i to 4 in. high. 

 It flowers from July to September, and is a herba- 

 ceous perennial. 



In most Orchids the twisting of the ovary causes 

 the upper petal or labellum to be below the two 

 others. In the Bog Orchid there is a double twist, 

 so that the lip is in the position in which it probably 

 occurred in the ancestral Orchids. Pollination is as 

 in other types of Orchids. 



