88 OKCHIDE® (Rolfe). | Platanthera. 
XVII. PLATANTHERA, L. C. Rich. 
Erect terrestrial herbs, with ovoid-globose or rarely somewhat lobed tubers ; 
leaves radical or cauline, spreading or suberect ; flowers small. or medium-sized, 
numerous, borne in dense or lax spikes or racemes; bracts narrow or rarely 
somewhat leafy. 
Distrip. Species about 60, mostly in temperate and subtropical regions of the 
northern hemisphere, with a few somewhat anomalous species in Africa, two of 
which occur within our limits, one being endemic. 
Sepals 4 in. long; lip ovate-oblong, subentire .., «es (1) tenuior, 
Sepals } in. long ; lip 3-lobed from a narrow base (2) mac i 
1. P. tenuior (Schlechter in Engl. Jahrb. xx. Beibl. 50, 12, 30) ; 
an erect, somewhat slender herb, 3-1} ft. high, with leafy stems ; 
leaves sessile, suberect, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, acute or acuminate, 
{-1} in. long, decreasing into sheaths below and into the bracts 
Vv racemes 1-4} in. long, somewhat dense, many-flowered ; 
bracts suberect, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, acute or acuminate, 
3-1 in. long; pedicels }—} in. long ; flowers medium-sized, purple ; 
and in Ann. Naturhist. Hofmus. Wien, xx. 
Fl. Afr. v. 115. naria tenuior, N.E. Br. in Gard. Chron. 
Sp , 
3; Durand & Schinz, Con- 
1885, xxiv. 307 ; Bolus in Journ. Linn. Soc. xxv. 192. 
