58 



THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



ferns and plumed sedges sway in the wind. With so much 

 that is immediately presented to the eye, how can the Tway- 

 blade, Listera cordata, tiniest of our Orchids, hope to turn your 

 steps toward her bower? True, you may not appreciate her 

 after you have brushed away the branches of Kalmia and Lab- 

 rador Tea, and found her to be a plainly dressed little thing, 

 perhaps six inches high, but she is entitled to as much respect as 

 any of her race. L. cordata, the Long-lipped or Heart-leaved 

 Listera, as Barton calls it, came, in 1883, with Calypso, but in 

 our Vermont lowlands generally accompanies C. arictinitm. It 

 is common all through the Green Mountains during July, par- 

 ticularly under the low spruces on the top of Mansfield and 

 Camel's Hump, and, through July and August, may be looked 

 for in the White Mountains, where it reaches an elevation of 

 3,000 feet to my knowledge, and probably climbs still higher, as 

 it requires little sustenance except moisture. Beyond New 

 England it extends as far north as Alaska. 



The genus Listera brings to our notice another tribe, that of 

 the Neottieae, containing, in this country, Goodyera, Spiranthes 

 and Listera, and standing according to structure between the 

 Ophrydeae and Arethuseae. The Neottieae have " the anther 

 attached to the back of the column, erect and parallel with 

 the stigma ; the 2 cells approximate, the pollen rather loose 

 or powdery, or elastically cohering." The genus Listera 

 has among other characteristics, the " lip mostly drooping, 

 2-lobed or 2-cleft ; the column wingless; the stigma with a 

 rounded beak ; the pollen-masses joined to a minute gland, and 

 the roots fibrous." Of the three species mentioned in Gray, we 

 have two in New England, and Listera cordata has the same 

 elaborate mechanism as the British Listera ovata. 



" The rostellum is of large size, convex in front and concave 

 behind, with its sharp summit slightly hollowed out on' each 

 side ; it arches over the stigmatic surface. The anther, situated 

 behind the rostellum and protected by a broad expansion of 



