24 
The Ohio Naturalist. 
[Vol. X, No. 2, 
THE ORCHIDS OF OHIO. 
Kate R. Blair. 
People in general know little of orchids because they do not 
come in one’s way as plants ordinarily do but must be sought for. 
They are most widely distributed in the damp and wooded 
regions of the world, reaching their greatest development in the 
tropics where many of them are brilliantly flowered epiphytes. 
In temperate regions they are terrestrial plants drawing their 
nourishment directly or indirectly from the soil. They are 
perennial herbs, many with root mycorrhizas, and on this 
account some of them are without^green foliage leaves, depending 
entirely for their food supply on the fungus growing on their 
roots. Most of them are rare plants and grow only in special 
habitats, and because of their mutualistic habits they can not 
easily be raised in gardens since it is difficult to produce a 
suitable substratum in which the fungus can develop. 
Twenty-one genera and thirty-seven species of orchids are 
reported from Ohio with two or three others that are doubtful. 
The species most widely distributed are: Galeorchis specta- 
bilis, Aplectrum spicatum, Blephariglottis psy'codes, Gyros- 
tachys cernua, Limodorum tuberosum, Perularia flava, Pogonia 
ophioglossoides, Triphora trianthophora, and Blephariglottis 
lacera. 
Orchids are valued chiefly because they are beautiful though 
a few are also useful. Vanilla is extracted from the fruit of a 
■'climbing orchid in Mexico; -and the leaves of some species in 
Madagascar are used for making tea. Their flowers are among 
the most unique in the plant kingdom, and the parts are highly 
specialized, with peculiar adaptations for insect pollination. 
Among the Ohio genera having some species with showy flowers 
the following deserve mention: Cypripedium, Galeorchis, Ble- 
phariglottis, Arethusa, Pogonia and Leptorchis. Some of the 
Cypripediums are known to be poisonous to the touch. C. 
reginae is poisonous to the skin much like poison ivy. At least 
fifty per cent of people are susceptible. C. parviflorum is also 
poisonous but less so than the former, while the variety, hir- 
sutum, is said to be as poisonous as-C. reginae. 
Orchidaceae. Orchid Family. 
Perennial plants, commonly succulent, arising from bulbs or 
corms, or from fibrous or tuberous roots, with entire, often 
grass-like or bract-like leaves. 
Flowers perfect, solitary, or in spikes or racemes, epigynous, 
zygomorphic, pentacylic, of a modified trimerous type, with a 
unilocular ovulary, specialized pollen masses, and numerous 
ovules on three parietal placentae; one of the petals usually 
