THE ORCHIDS OF XEW EXGLAND. 69 



of Massachusetts, called it " unattractive," while Mrs. Lincoln, 

 whose Lectures on Botany were published at Hartford in 

 1835, thought the difficulty bridged by her statement : " in the 

 woods the flowers are green." H. dilatata is one of the most 

 stately children of the forest, and her velvety spike, springing 

 out of rank sedges and ferns, catches the eye at once, or where 

 the plant grows profusely, so perfumes the air as to need no 

 other sign of its presence. Its color is usually pure white, but 

 Mrs. Sarah C. Purington, of Auburn, Maine, writes me that she 

 once found this species deeply tinged with pink-purple. As 

 Gray well says : " the spike is wand-like ; " both bracts and spurs 

 are short ; and there is " a trowel-shaped conspicuous beak (ros- 

 tellum) between the bases of the anther-cells." H. Jiypcrborea, 

 which, as has been intimated, comes at the same time and gen- 

 erally in the same places, is more numerously flowered ; the lip 

 is tapering instead of " dilated ;" and the stem is sheathed with 

 broader leaves. The Report of the Geological Exploration of the 

 40th Parallel gives the range of these two Habenarias as fol- 

 lows : " H. hyperborea ; Border States and Canada to Greenland 

 and the Arctic Circle (Iceland also has its H. hyperborea) and 

 Unalaska. The Saskatchawan region and Washington Territory 

 and southward on the mountains to California (?) and Nevada. 

 In Nevada found at an elevation of 8,000 feet, as July-Aug. H. 

 dilatata; Nevada, 6,000 to 9,000 feet, July-Sept. Posterior 

 sepal not hooded." The chief difference between the species, 

 however, is that H. dilatata cannot fertilize itself, while H. 

 hyperborea " habitually " does. 



" H. dilatata has," says Gray, " its anther-cells near together 

 and almost parallel, and the very large strap-shaped discs are 

 parallel, vertical and near together, and placed just over the 

 back side of the narrow orifice of the spur, looking forward ; 

 they are nearly as long as the pollen-mass and its stalk together ; 

 the latter is short and flat and attached to its disc just below 

 the summit of the latter. No movement of depression or of 



