98 LHE ORCHIDS OF NEW ENGLAND. 
alike, one outside each anther-cell, and one between them, 
which rise as high as the anther-cells,” and may be sterile 
stamens. Their surfaces are viscid and the spontaneously 
detached grains of pollen stick fast to them, and “send down 
pollen-tubes freely into their substance, so that they appear to 
act as stigmas, although the normal stigma is found in its 
proper place and of ordinary appearance underneath the 
discs.” This real stigma, strangely enough, is 
not as viscid as the surfaces of the processes, 
but “the large discs are in perfect condition ; 
the stems of the pollen-masses are promptly 
depressed when removed.” | 
Habenaria virescens, the Greenish Orchis,. 
| agrees with the foregoing species in date, in 
a preference for wet (but more open) ground, 
and a little in the character of its flowers as 
it follows in natural order. A. tridentata, 
: according to Chapman, is found as far south 
as Mississippi; /7. vzrescens occurs in Flor- 
ida, and the latter has been as plentifully 
endowed with titles as any royal personage; 
O. fava, O. bidentata, H. herbiola, and P. 
fiava, being a few of the names given it by 
; i : . e . 
ye different writers. ‘The structure of the disc- 
Fic. 29.—GREENISH . : ” 
Orcuts. bearing portion of the column,” says Gray, 
Habenaria virescens. «« answers, perhaps, to what is expressed by 
Lindley’s vague character of Gymnadenia, ‘ rostello complicaio, 
and is quite different from that which prevails in the more 
genuine species of Platanthera. Viewed from the front (on 
removing the lip), each disc is found to line an oblong cavity 
or deep groove: viewed vertically from above, this appears as 
a ring with the front edge cut away or as something more 
than a semicircle lined by the thin broad disc. A narrow, 
nose-shaped protuberance on the lip projects upward and back- 
