SEPTEMBER, 1922.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 26r 
SPIRANTHES ROMANZOFFIANA. 
By COLONEL M. J. GODFERY, F.L.S. 
HIS species is confined to Ireland (where it is exceedingly rare and 
local), and occurs nowhere else in Europe, Its headquarters are in 
North America, where it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from 
Unalaska to California. According to Asa Gray, its Irish localities are the 
last lingering stations of a species oncecommon to bothcontinents. It was 
first found, sparingly, at Bantry Bay by Drummond about 1810, but in 
1886 Dr. Armstrong found the little boggy field where it formerly grew 
planted with potatoes, and its only other then-known station bearing a 
crop of oats. Fortunately, it has since been discovered in the North of 
Ireland. 
It was named, as a new species, Neottia gemmipara by Sir J. E. Smith 
(Eng. Fl. iv. 36, 1828). Neottia was a composite genus from which 
Spiranthes and Goodyera have since been separated. Babington referred it 
to S. cernua, and Hooker figured it as such (Bot. Mag. t.5277), but adopted 
S. Romanzoffiana in his Students’ Flora. Mr. Oakes Ames, the great 
authority on American Orchids, tells me that S. cernua is a quite distinct 
species. I sent him photographs of the N. Irish plant, and he said, “If 
somebody had handed me the photographs, and had said they were taken 
from specimens gathered in Canada or Maine, I should have told him that 
the species was S. Romanzoffiana. If then I was informed they came 
from Ireland, I should have said S. Romanzoffiana, nevertheless.”” Mr. Ames 
boiled up a single flower froma sheet of specimens collected by Praeger in 
Co. Derry in 1895; and another, taken quite at random, of the American 
plant, and kindly sent camera lucida sketches of the two lips, which clearly 
show their identity. 
Smith’s diagnosis was not written by himself. ‘‘ Such is the account,” 
he says, ‘‘ given by the accurate Mr. Drummond, and communicated to me 
in August, 1810, along with a specimen by the Rev. Mr. Hincks, of Cork,” 
pathetically adding, “‘I have waited from year to year (18 years !) for 
specimens ina fresh state, but hitherto in vain.’”’ Drummond's description 
runs :—“‘ Buds destined to flower the following year are formed among the 
leaves at the bottom of the flower stalk ... . the following spring each 
bud puts forth a pair of oblong knobs .. - - and becomes a separate 
plant.” This was taken to mean. that the plant was gemmiparous, but it is 
doubtful whether Drummond intended to convey this interpretation, for in 
that case each plant would have twice as many tubers as the buds of the 
previous year, or, if each bud separated itself from the parent plant, the 
plants would be found in tufts. Drummond, however, expressly says there 
are only two knobs (tubers), and Mr. Ames states that colonies consist of 
