254 ORCHIDS OF THE SIKKIM-HIMALAYA. 
66. Listera, К. Brown. 
Terrestrial, erect, slender, 2-leaved herbs (leafless in one species) with fibrous roots. 
‘Leaves opposite or sub-opposite, rarely alternate, membranous, sessile or sub-sessile. Flowers 
small, racemose. Sepals and petals sub-equal, free, spreading or reflexed. Zip adnate to 
the base of the column, pendulous, longer than the sepals, narrow, the apex usually bifid, 
sometimes 3-fid or entire. Column stout, cylindric, usually curved forwards. Anther 
depressed, its lip obtuse; pollinia two or four cohering in pairs, rostellum short. Species 
about 16, natives of N. temperate regions and of high altitudes in the Himalaya. 
"The genus Neottia was founded by Linneus in 1735 to include only N. Corallorrhisa. In his 
Species Plantarum, published in 1753, however, Linnæus omitted Neottia. altogether; and his old 
Neottia Corallorrhiza appeared there in the genus OpArys, into which also he put O. nidus-avis, O. ovata, 
and О. cordata, together with several others. Corallorrhiza (a name first used by Haller in 
1742) was, within the chronological limits of binominal nomenclature, taken as a generic name by В. 
Brown, who in 1813, on page 209 of Aiton's Hortus Kewensis (Ed. II, Vol. 5), brought under 
it the Ophrys Corallorrhisa of Linnsus's binominal period. It is thus junior as a genus to the same 
author's Lisiera, which he first described on page 201 of the work just quoted. Two species which 
formed part of Linnwus's genus Ophrys of 1753 (viz, О. ovata and О. cordata) were put by Brown 
into the new genus Listera which, as has just been stated, he founded for their reception. Listera 
is, according to Kuntze, identical with Diphryllum of Rafinesque (published іп 1808) In 1818, 
Richard (Mem. Museum Paris, 1818, Vol. 4, p. 58) resuscitated the generic name Neottia, and 
under it he put JN. midus-avis, N. convallarioides, and also N. latifolia (=Listera ovata, Вт.) and 
N. cordata (=Listera cordata, Вт). The Neottia of Linnsus, dating as it does from 1735, and 
prior to its author’s inauguration of the binominal nomenclature, and being moreover omitted in his 
Species Plantarum of 1753, falls entirely to the ground as a Linnean genus. The reconstituted 
Neottia of Richard, dating only from 1818, is five years junior to the Listera of R. Brown (1813), 
and must give precedence to the latter. Amongst the plants attributed to the Neottia of Richard 
is М. listeroides, published by Lindley in Royles Illustrations of Himalayan Botany in 1889, 
p. 368. The same plant was also figured by Decaisne in Jacquemont’s Voyage (1840), p. 163, 
t. 163, as Neottia Lindleyana, Decne. In his Genera and Species of Orchids (p. 457) Lindley remarks 
that “with regard to the genera Neottia, Rich, and Listera, Brown, there is nothing that can be 
pointed out as a satisfactory distinctive mark, except their habit." In the opinion thus expressed 
we entirely agree, and we would suppress the Neottia of Richard. But according to the custom 
which makes priority the supreme consideration in changes of names, Neottia listeroides should, if 
transferred to Listera, become Listera listeroides, To avoid this absurdity we have therefore taken 
for the species Decaisne's more recent specific name (Lindleyana) The decision to use the name 
Listera for the conjoined genus may seem to some unsatisfactory, but no other course appears to us 
to be possible; for if, with Kuntze, one takes the Linnsan generic names prior to the establish- 
ment of the binominal nomenclature, then the name Neottia is applicable only to Corallorhisa. But 
if one begins with the publication of Linnsus’s Species Plantarum in 1753, the name Neottia is of 
later date (1818) than the name Listera (1813) or than Diphryllum (1808)—the latter an altogether 
obscure and unfamiliar one which we decide to have nothing to do with. 
Leafy— 
The edges of the lip entire Ж at the apex. 
Apex of lip 8-4 . . ele c uode a ым л л 
Apex of lip 2-fid. 
Lip brown, the rest of the flower green. 
Column short, straight . . 9.2 549 ,-,..х.7 Дк PRI 
Column long, much curved . . s e » + + » . 3. Г. pinetorums | 
Whole flower green. 
Flowers "6 in. long 5% . . . . а . . . . . Bs 7, (олдісашіз. 
