Wild Flowers East of the Rockies 85 



RAGGED FRINGED ORCHIS (Habenaria lacera) 



does not attract our attention because of its beauty, 

 for its flowers are rather inconspicuous in color. 

 They are, however, remarkable for the peculiarly cut 

 and slashed lip, it being divided apparently with no 

 regard for method or symmetry. The greenish-white 

 flowers are in a dense, many-flowered raceme at the 

 summit of a leafy stem from 10 to 20 inches high. 

 The leaves are oblong-lanceolate, diminishing in size 

 to the flower bracts as they reach the raceme. This 

 species is not uncommon in swamps from Newfound- 

 land to Minn, and southwards. 



WHITE FRINGED ORCHIS (H. blephariglottis) 

 has a densely flowered raceme or spike similar to 

 that of the Yellow Fringed species, but the flowers 

 are pure white; the lip is not divided but is copiously 

 fringed; lateral sepals rounded, upper ones elliptical 

 and concave; spur nearly an inch long. Leaves lance- 

 olate and gradually diminishing in size as they alter- 

 nate to the top of the stem. In July and August you 

 may find this species flowering, throughout the 

 United States. 



Habenaria leucophaea is also a white fringed Orchis. 

 It is large, the stem varying from 1 to 3 feet in 

 height. The flowers are also large, the spur averag- 

 ing 1 1-2 inches in length; the lip is in three divis- 

 ions, each of which is conspicuously fringed; the 

 lateral and upper sepals are nearly round and quite 

 strongly concaved. The lanceolate leaves are large 

 at the bottom of the stem, but are reduced in size 

 to the flower bracts as they reach the spike. This 

 will be found in wet meadows and swamps from N. S. 

 to Minn, and southwards, chiefly west of the Alle- 

 ghanies, to the Gulf of Mexico, flowering in June 

 and July. 



