HABENARIA 43 



have been described. It has one famihar and easily recog- 

 nised characteristic, the long leafy bracts that give it its 

 scientific name. These project much beyond the flowers 

 in the small tvs^o to five-inch spike, and are two or three times 

 as long as they are at the base, but grow gradually shorter 

 as they reach the summit. 



The Long-bracted Orchis has a wide habitat. It grows 

 in woods and meadows from New Brunswick to British 

 Columbia and from North Carolina to Nebraska. It 

 climbs the mountains as high as 3,600 feet in Virginia and 

 seems as much at home in Europe as America. It there- 

 fore possesses some secret of attraction for insects — some 

 microscopic charm of night odour, or some hint of hidden 

 nectar that invites tiny insects to its portal to bear away 

 their infinitesimal clubs of pollen, and thus keep the species 

 widely spread. 



9. SMALL GREEN WOOD ORCHIS 



Habenaria clavellata (Michx.) Sprengel. (Plate XX.) 



In the warm summer weather in July and August the 

 Small Green Wood Orchis blooms in wet woods all over 

 the eastern portion of the American continent from New- 

 foundland and Minnesota to Florida. It has been found 

 as early as June 6th along pine wood streams in Louisiana, 

 and as late as August 28th in Tennessee, and September 2d 

 on the shores of Pyramid Lake in northern New York. It 

 grows on the sea-bound island of Martha's Vineyard, and at 



