ORCHIDACE.E 



genera. While Lindley, Pfitzer and Kranzlin agree that G^Tn- 

 nadenia and Platanthera should be upheld, these authors are not 

 in accord as to many of the species which should be referred to 

 them! 



The species which Lindley included in Coeloglossum, Kranzlin 

 places in Peristylus, Platanthera and Euhabenaria. He also refers 

 to Orchis, Peristylus and Platanthera, species included by Lind- 

 ley in Gymnadenia. Pfitzer, on the other hand, throws Peristy- 

 lus into Platanthera. Habenaria viridis is placed in Peristylus 

 by Lindley, in Platanthera by Kranzhn, and in Coeloglossum by 

 Pfitzer. Pfitzer gives Coeloglossum as a monotypic genus, Lind- 

 ley placed five species in it, and Kranzhn abandoned it altogether 

 in his Orchidacearum Genera et Species. Pfitzer upholds Peru- 

 laria, Kranzlin reduces it to Platanthera. Numerous similar ex- 

 amples of disagreement could be cited to show the slender claim 

 for recognition of Gymnadenia, Platanthera, Peristylus and 

 Coeloglossum. It is at least reasonable to assume that genera 

 which are so poorly differentiated that the same species may be 

 referred to several of them by careful students of the orchid 

 family are scarcely tenable in a rational and convenient system 

 of classification. 



We are indebted for the most recent revision of a part of the 

 genus Habenaria as represented in North America north of 

 Mexico to Dr. P. A. Rydberg of the New York Botanical Gar- 

 dens. Dr. Rydberg has gone farther than any other author of 

 modern times in the splitting up of the genus, and has given us 

 several new segregate genera. He is not at all in sympathy with 

 the conservatism of Bentham and Hooker, Torrey, Gray, Co- 

 gniaux and others, and is much opposed to the maintenance of 

 large groups which in any way may be divided. An illustration 

 of what I mean may be obtained from Britton's Manual of the 



[9] 



