66 THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND: 
but this is evidently only a natural corruption of the name 
given in the old botanies, Ladies’ Traces, which likened the 
arrangement of the flowers to the traces or strings of a 
bodice. 
Spiranthes is intermediate between Goodyera and Listera. 
“In Spiranthes,” says Meehan, “there are callous protuber- 
ances at the base of the lip; the other genera have none. 
Listera has sepals and petals spreading, the petals of the others 
are ringent (or gaping) at the base. In some cases of Spi- 
ranthes, the rachis, or that part of the stem to which the flowers 
are attached, is perfectly straight and only the flowers seemed 
coiled around it, while in other species it is screw-like and seems 
to carry the flowers with it as it coils.” “‘ Gaping” describes. 
most admirably the appearance of the tubular blossoms. The 
stem of S. latifolia is “naked or leafy below; the roots clus- 
tered-tuberous,” to quote superficially from Gray. The arrange- 
ments for fertilization are probably similar to those of S. gracilis 
and S. ceruua, and I reserve a description, of the process until 
I come to those later species. Meehan states that these 
Orchids are seldom, if ever, obtained beyond the Mississippi. 
I have found Spiranthes latifolia quite high up on mountain 
roads when hunting for another Orchid that requires cold and 
dampness, Habenaria dilatata. The latter, it is safe to assume, 
is associated in many a mind with a Maine carry, a White 
Mountain flume, or a Green Mountain notch. Perhaps you 
recall the very spot, a green nook near the limpid pool in 
which you dipped your hands; or it may have been higher up 
where white-throated sparrows were whistling through the mist, 
and icy springs came trickling through beds of moss ‘and snow- 
berry, and the bleak summit was almost gained. 
HT. dilatata, the Northern White Orchis, has been often con- 
founded with A. hyperborea, the Northern Green Orchis, as by 
Sir William Hooker, who feared it was only a luxuriant form 
of the latter, and by Dewey, who, in his Herbaceous Plants 
