106 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 



mournfully says : " the ardor of modern botanists is fast putting 

 an end to its brief career," and then adds, " this case presents 

 some features of peculiar interest, because the Irish specimens 

 would seem to have been settled in the country for a very long 

 period, sufficient to have set up an incipient tendency toward 

 the evolution of a new species ; for they had so far varied be- 

 fore their first discovery by botanists that Lindley considered 

 them to be distinct from their American allies, and even Dr. 

 Bentham originally so classed them, though he now admits the 

 essential identity of both kinds." 



Spiranthes graminea, variety Waltcri, carries one 

 straight rank of more open flowers and gets its ad- 

 jective, " grassy," from the localities where it grows. 

 A more lowland species than the last, it appears to 

 have also a more southward range and to be most 

 common in the meadows along the coast. 



Spiranthes gracilis, the Slender Spiranthes, ar- 

 ranging its tiny flowers like 5. graminea, bears its 

 leaves clustered at the base of the stem, but from 

 their small size and their habit of withering when 

 the plant flowers they count for very little. This 

 F1G.33-F00TOF S p ec i es ordinarily has clustered roots, but Dr. N. 



Spiranthes Ro- x j 



manzoviana. L. Britton, of Columbia College, has found it in 

 Ulster Co., New York, with a single tuber. Nature must be 

 fond of the Slender Spiranthes, or she would not permit it to 

 flourish in comparatively dry soil and to enjoy a four months' 

 lease of life. One need not be surprised to see it in July or to 

 gather it with S. cernua in October. 



In the structure of 5. gracilis (and of vS. cermia as well) we 

 have a more more complex arrangement than one would dream 

 existed in flowers so minute and unpretending; as is shown in 

 Darwin's account of the British 5. autumnalis. The stigma 

 occupies about the same place that it does in a Habenaria. 

 There is also a rostellum, but this is curiously different from 



