Т HABENARIA. | | 305: 
dorsal. Lip about twice as long as the sepals, much decurved, the lateral lobes 
broadly oblong with truncate apices; the ‘terminal lobe divided into two truncate 
lobules almost as large as the side lobes; the whole upper surface puberulous; spur 
half as long as and lying parallel to the ovary, -cylindric, sub-acute. Anther with 
parallel cells; pollinia sub-obovoid, the caudicles clavate; the glands small, nearly naked, 
their lower halves being only partly covered by the small tongue-like rostellar pouch. 
Staminodes elongate. | 
Sikkim, in the Lachong valley, at 10,000 feet; flowering in July; Pantling No. 478. 
This species resembles the small forms of 0. Chusua, Don, but has puberulous 
strongly-keeled sepals and a very puberulous practically 4-lobed lip; the flowers are 
white. | ! к 
PLATE 403.—Orchis pulerula, King and Pantling. Three plants, of natural size, Fig. 1 side view 
of a bract, ovary and flower, 2 lip 3 column, showing the anthers and almost naked polliniar glands, 
the staminodes and the stigma (s), 4 pollinia; ай enlarged, 
$ 
.87. Habenaria, Willd. 
Terrestrial leafy herbs with undivided ‘or lobed tubers or fleshy root-fibres. Leaves 
not plaited, their bases sheathing. Flowers in racemes or spikes. Sepals sub-equal, the 
dorsal often connivent with the petals to form a hood over the column; the lateral 
pair spreading, reflexed or deflexed, or sometimes erect. Petals smaller or larger 
than the sepals, entire or 2-cleft. Lip adnate to the base of the column, entire, 
9-lobed or 3-partite, its base spurred. Anther-cells adnate to the front of the short 
usually broad column, discrete, rarely touching, parallel or divergent below, their bases 
often prolonged into tubes containing the caudicles. Staminodes rugulose, lying one 
on the outer side of each anther-cell. Pollinia two, clavate or pyriform, usually grooved, 
sometimes 2-partite; caudicles long, short or absent; glands exposed, flat and discoid, 
or elliptic or globular, or elongate with truncate ends [conjoined and overlapped by 
processes of the rostellum (?) in .H. secundiflora].  Stigmas two, distant from each other 
or conjoined to form а belt across the face of the column. Species about 400; 
cosmopolitan, temperate and tropical. 
A genus which should certainly be reduced to the older Linnsan genus of Herminiun were it 
not for the upsetting of synonymy which this wou'd involve. The older genus consists of about 
13 species; Habenaria contains about 400! Moreover the distinctions between Habenaria and Orchis 
are also mostly arbitrary; and, were mere consistency the only object, Orchis (a genus of Tournefort) 
would swallow up not only Herminium and Habenaria, but also Diplomeris and Hemipilia. Genera are 
after all little more than conveniences for facilitating study, and there seems no necessity for 
applying the Draconian principles of Kuntze at the expense of much discomfort to the students 
of this beautiful family. We have arranged the species in the sections adopted by Sir J. D. Hooker in 
his admirable account of the genus in the Flora of British India, 
Sect. T—Are.— Petals bipartite; lip 3-lobed or 3-partite. | 
. : Lip hastately 3-partite, the lower lobe of the petals short . . . 1. AH. stenopetala. 
Segments of the lip and of the sepals filiform, and the apices 
of all the sepals with long filiform tails . . . . . . . 1. МН. stenopetais, 
> | (des ut | i var. polytricha. 
Axx Roy. Bor. Garb., CarcurrA, Vor. VIII. 
