XXXVII.— THE BROAD-LEAVED HELLEBORINE. 
Epipactis latifolia Allioni. 
T HE British genera of Orchids can be conveniently grouped into four Tribes — 
Ophrydect , Neottie# , Malaxide<e , and Cypripedie<e. Of these the first three have 
but one stamen bearing pollen, whereas Cypripedium , the Lady’s-slipper, has two. 
The Ophrydea include Orchis , Gymnadenia, Acer as , Neo tinea, Habenaria , Ophrys, and 
Herminium , four of which we have already exemplified. The Malaxide <e include the 
three genera, each represented in Britain by one bog species, Malaxis , Liparis , and 
Corallorhiza ; and the Neottiece include Goodyera , Spiranthes , Listera , Neottia , Epipactis , 
and Cephalanthera. The first of these last six genera, only represented in our 
country by a rare northern species, Goodyera repens Brown, was appropriately named 
in honour of John Goodyer of Petersfield, a sixteenth-century botanist of whom too 
little is known. He appears to have been the first to discover some twenty-four 
British species and to have been, perhaps, the first botanist in England who can be 
termed “ critical.” Some manuscripts by him are preserved at Magdalen College, 
Oxford. 
Whilst Goodyera , Spiranthes , Listera , and Neottia have a distinct rostellum with 
the anther hinged at the back of the column, the two related genera Epipactis and 
Cephalanthera , the species of which are alike known in English as Helleborines, 
have little or no rostellum and have the anther hinged on the top of the column, as 
is indicated by the name Cephalanthera , from the Greek uecfsaXp, kephale , head, and 
dvOrjpa, anthera , anther. Both of these two last-named genera are “ Palaearctic ” in 
distribution, extending, that is, from the Himalaya and Northern Africa over Asia 
and Europe ; and each comprises about ten species. The three British species of 
Cephalanthera are well-defined and beautiful plants, the commonest, C. grandiflora 
S. F. Gray, growing in copses on a calcareous soil, and bearing broad leaves and 
erect, cup-like, creamy-white, fragrant blossoms, the rarer C. longifolia Fritsch, with 
longer, narrower foliage, and the rarest C. rubra Richard, very similar but with 
rose-red flowers. 
Epipactis , on the other hand, is a far more difficult genus. To begin with, 
there is considerable doubt as to the generic name it should bear. So vague and 
comprehensive was the Linnaean genus Serapias that the question at present rests 
between Epipactis and Helleborine. Both these names, it happens, occur in Dioscorides. 
Epipactis , obviously Greek, is of unknown meaning ; but seems to have been 
originally applied to some species of Hellebore. It was first used for Orchids by 
Haller ( 1708-77). Helleborine , otherwise spelt Heleborine and Elleborine, signifies 
resemblance to Hellebore (Greek eXelu, helein , to remove ; / 3 opd, bora , food), the 
leaves of Epipactis latifolia Allioni bearing a considerable resemblance to those of 
Veratrum album L., the White Hellebore, a dangerous but once much employed 
emetic. Used by Dodoens, the Bauhins, Ray, and Tournefort, Helleborine rests, 
