OECHIDACE^S. 



825 



XII. HABENARIA. HABENAKIA. 



Foliage, inflorescence, and spurred flowers of Orchis, but the anther- 

 cells, instead of converging at the base, are either parallel or more 

 or less diverging. 



An extensive genus, chiefly distributed over Asia and America. The 

 table of species is included above in that of Orchis. 



1. Butterfly Habenaria. Habenaria bifolia, Br. (Fig. 994.) 

 {Orchis, Eng. Bot. t. 22, and Suppl. t. 2806.) 



Tubers entire. Stem 1 to 1\ feet 

 high, with 2 rather large leaves at its 

 base, varying from broadly ovate to ob- 

 long ; the outer leaves very few, and 

 usually reduced to sheathing scales. 

 Flowers pure white or with a slight 

 greenish tinge, rather large, and sweet- 

 scented, in a loose spike from 3 to 6 or 

 8 inches long, with lanceolate bracts 

 about the length of the ovary. Two 

 lateral sepals spreading, the upper one 

 arching over the column with the petals. 

 Lip linear and entire, rather longer than 

 the sepals, and usually greenish at the 

 tip. Spur slender, twice as long as the 

 ovary. 



In moist pastures, and meadows, on 

 grassy slopes and open places in moist 

 woods, throughout Europe and Russian 



Asia, from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Circle. G-enerally dis- 

 tributed over Britain. Fl. all summer. It varies much in the breadth 

 of the leaves as well as of the parts of the flower, and the extreme forms 

 have been distinguished as species, the name of S. chloraniha being 

 given to those in which the flowers are large, usually very white (al- 

 though the name means ' green-flowered '), and the anther-cells much 

 more broadly diverging at the base. But every intermediate may be 

 observed between the broad and the narrow forms. 



Fig. 994. 



2. Small Habenaria. Habenaria albida, Br. (Fig. 995.) 



(Satyrium, Eng. Bot. t. 505. Gymnadenia, Bab. Man.) 



In stature, and its small flowers with very short spurs, this species 

 approaches the dwarf Orchis, but the flowers are white, and the an- 

 thers are more like those of Habenaria than of Orchis. The rootstock 



