THE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND, 69 
of Massachusetts, called it “unattractive,” while Mrs. Lincoln, 
whose Lecturcs on Botany were published at Hartford in 
1835, thought the difficulty bridged by her statement: “in the 
woods the flowers are green.” 7. delatata is one of the most 
stately children of the forest, and her velvety spike, springing 
out of rank sedges and ferns, catches the eye at once, or where 
the plant grows profusely, so perfumes the air as to need no 
other sign of its presence. Its color is usually pure white, but 
Mrs. Sarah C. Purington, of Auburn, Maine, writes me that she 
once found this species deeply tinged with pink-purple. As 
Gray well says: “the spike is wand like; both bracts and spurs 
are short; and there is “a trowel-shaped conspicuous beak (ros- 
tellum) between the bases of the anther-cells.” A. hyperborea, 
which, as has been intimated, comes at the same time and gen- 
erally in the same places, is more numerously flowered; the lip 
is tapering instead of “ dilated;” and the stem is sheathed with 
broader leaves. The Report of the Geological Exploration of the 
40th Parallel gives the, range of these two Habenarias as fol- 
lows: “ HY. hyperborea ; Border States and Canada to Greenland 
and the Arctic Circle (Iceland also has its A. hyperborea) and 
Unalaska. The Saskatchawan region and Washington Territory 
and southward on the mountains to California (?) and Nevada. 
In Nevada found at an elevation of 8,000 feet, as July-Aug. 
dulatata ; Nevada, 6,000 to 9,000 feet, July-Sept. Posterior 
sepal not hooded.” The chief difference between the species, 
however, is that AY. dilatata cannot fertilize itself, while Z. 
hyperborea “ habitually ” does. 
“ Hf. dilatata has,” says Gray, “its anther-cells near together 
and almost parallel, and the very large strap-shaped discs are 
parallel, vertical and near together, and placed just over the 
back side of the narrow orifice of the spur, looking forward; 
they are nearly as long as the pollen-mass and its stalk together ; 
the latter is short and flat and attached to its disc just below 
the summit of the latter. No movement of depression or of 
