THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



alike, one outside each anther-cell, and one between them, 

 which rise as high as the anther-cells," and may be sterile 

 stamens. Their surfaces are viscid and the spontaneously 

 detached grains of pollen stick fast to them, and " send down 

 pollen-tubes freely into their substance, so that they appear to 

 act as stigmas, although the normal stigma is found in its 

 proper place and of ordinary appearance underneath the 

 discs." This real stigma, strangely enough, is 

 not as viscid as the surfaces of the processes, 

 but "the large discs are in perfect condition ; 

 the stems of the pollen-masses are promptly 

 depressed when removed." 



Habenaria virescens, the Greenish Orchis, 

 agrees with the foregoing species in date, in 

 a preference for wet (but more open) ground, 

 and a little in the character of its flowers as 

 it follows in natural order. H. tridentata, 

 according to Chapman, is found as far south 

 as Mississippi ; H. virescens occurs in Flor- 

 ida, and the latter has been as plentifully 

 endowed with titles as any royal personage ; 

 O. fiava, O. bidentata, H. Jicrbiola, and P. 

 ftava, being a few of the names given it by 

 different writers. " The structure of the disc- 

 bearing portion of the column," says Gray, 

 " answers, perhaps, to what is expressed by 

 Lindley's vague character of Gymnadenia, ' rostello complicato,' 

 and is quite different from that which prevails in the more 

 genuine species of Platanthera. Viewed from the front (on 

 removing the lip), each disc is found to line an oblong cavity 

 or deep groove : viewed vertically from above, this appears as 

 a ring with the front edge cut away or as something more 

 than a semicircle lined by the thin broad disc. A narrow, 

 nose-shaped protuberance on the lip projects upward and back- 



Fig. 29. — Greenish 



Orchis. 

 Habenaria virescens. 



