86 OUR NATIVE ORCHIDS 



eight specimens were selected and marked, and the jointed 

 parts of the Hp removed. The result was that only two out 

 of the eight bore as many seeds as the unmutilated flowers 

 on the same stalk and six capsules contained fewer seeds. 

 In another experiment, three out of eleven mutilated flowers 

 set no seed. These experiments would seem to show that the 

 elastic upspringing of the lip was of advantage to the flower. 



Whoever would seek Epipactis viridiflora, our one rare 

 Helleborine that grows in the East, must look for a short 

 herb with fibrous roots and a simple leafy stem, from one to 

 two feet high. The leaves are ovate-lanceolate, from one 

 and one-half to three inches long. They are downy above, 

 and strongly veined and clasp the stem without a pedicel. 



The flowers grow in a leafy-bracted, one-sided raceme 

 and are greenish yellow or sometimes purple. They are not 

 quite half an inch long and barely as long as the sharp, narrow 

 bracts that spring from the base of the flower pedicels. The 

 flowers stand obliquely erect, and the contracted lip with 

 its horny cap and hinged, pointed tip stands off at right 

 angles. All the sepals and petals are separate, and from 

 their midst the column with its projecting anther is plainly 

 visible. 



Dr. Britton, in his "Flora of the Northern States and 

 Canada," notes that this species is "sometimes confounded 

 with the European E. lati folia, but differs in having the lip 

 free from callosities, its apex acute, and the sepals and 

 petals large and more tapering." It blooms in July and 

 August. 



