40 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 
to stick fast to the side of the face (the eye most likely, as 
the discs, to quote Darwin, ‘cannot adhere to a scaly or 
very hairy surface,’) of the first one that dips its proboscis 
into the attractive nectary.” Moreover, as the discs are un- 
covered, and “the viscid matter serves to attach the pollen- 
masses firmly, without setting hard, there would be no use in 
the insects being delayed by having to bore holes at several 
points through the inner membrane of the nectaries,” and, 
therefore, in these open nectaries “(we find copious nectar 
ready stored for rapid suction.” 
Gymnadenia and Platanthera are now included in the genus 
Habenaria, and this genus, together with Orchis, forms, in this 
country, the tribe Ophrydee. If it is a virtue to be a True 
Orchis, the Habenarias, or Rein-Orchises, are compensated in 
proportion to their departure from the standard, by acquiring 
more attractive features: gayer colors, fringed or divided lips, 
and generally speaking, greater height. Gray’s Botany con- 
tains a list of nineteen, and of this fair sisterhood thirteen are 
natives of New England. 
The first to offer itself for a spring bouquet is Habecnaria 
Hookert, or the Smaller Two-leaved Orchis, placed by some 
of my correspondents before C. parvzflorum, the difference in 
dates of flowering being a matter of but a few days. Find- 
ing itin the same localities with Orchzs spectabzlts, you would 
trace a family likeness at once, in the bracted, angled scape 
and flat-lying leaves, if going no further into the study. The 
colors it wears are green and yellow, and it cannot be styled 
prepossessing, but, nevertheless, it has a decided dignity of 
mien. In its structure it is much like the British A. chlor- 
antha, but its anther-cells “are more widely divergent, conse- 
quently a moth, unless of gigantic size, would be able to suck 
the copious nectar without touching either disc; but this risk is 
avoided in the following manner: the central line of the stigma 
is prominent, and the lip, instead of hanging down, as in most 
