THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



75 



species of the tribe. We have observed that this species is 

 very fertile, usually maturing all its ovaries." 



The genus Corallorhiza (Coral-root), northern or extra-tropi- 

 cal in range and containing about ten species, has four repre- 

 sentatives in the North-eastern United States, three of them oc- 

 curring in New England. This genus follows Liparis in Gray's 

 Botany ; the plants are supposed to be root-parasitical,* and 

 send up " a simple scape, furnished with 

 sheaths instead of leaves, from a much 

 branched and toothed coral-like root-stock." 

 The lip, "slightly adherent to the base of the 

 2-edged straightish column," " is often more 

 or less extended into a protuberance or 

 " short spur coalescent with the ovary." The 

 anther is " terminal, lid-like." The 4 pollen- 

 masses are " soft-waxy or powdery, and have FlG 22 ._ RooT OF 

 no stalks or connecting tissue." C. innata Corallorhiza. 

 (Early Coral-root), and C. odontorhiza (Dragon-claw, Coral-tooth, 

 Small Late Coral-root) are mentioned together here, although 

 the latter belongs rather to July, in Vermont, because the next 

 Orchid mentioned is a near relative and might be mistaken for 

 them. C. innata, which Hooker says closely accords with the 

 European species, is a low dingy-green herb bearing a few spur- 

 less flowers, and found in swampy or wet shaded places. Grow- 

 ing as far south as Georgia, it yet follows Calypso across the 

 60th parallel, but notwithstanding this extensive range, it is 

 rare. C. odontorhiza is found in Florida, and Chapman makes 

 the singular statement that although vernal in the N'orth it does 

 not bloom till September and October in the South. This 

 Coral-root has a depression where its flower-spur should be. 

 From its greater height, which may be sixteen inches, and its 



* Sachs {Botanical Text Book) calls the Coral-roots, particularly C. innata. 

 " saprophytes," because they "make use . . . of the material of other plants 

 which are already in a state of decomposition." 



