1. H. aphýllus, Raf. Stem 1–2° high, beset with purplish scales, the lower sheathing; flowers racemed, bracteate, brownish-purple, 6–8´´ long. (Bletia aphylla, Nutt.)—Rich woods, Ky. and Mo. to Fla. and Mex.
8. LÍSTERA, R. Brown. Twayblade.
Sepals and petals nearly alike, spreading or reflexed. Lip mostly drooping, longer than the sepals, 2-lobed or 2-cleft. Column wingless; stigma with a rounded beak. Anther borne on the back of the column at the summit, erect, ovate; pollen powdery, in 2 masses, joined to a minute gland.—Roots fibrous. Stem bearing a pair of opposite sessile leaves in the middle, and a spike or raceme of greenish or brownish-purple small flowers. (Dedicated to Martin Lister, an early and celebrated British naturalist.)
[*] Column very short; sepals ovate, reflexed; plants delicate, 4–8´ high.
1. L. cordàta, R. Brown. Leaves round-ovate, somewhat heart-shaped (½–1´ long); raceme smooth; flowers minute, crowded, on pedicels not longer than the ovary; lip linear, twice as long as the sepals, 1-toothed each side at base, 2-cleft.—Cold woods, N. J. to Mich., Minn., and northward. June. (Eu.)
2. L. austràlis, Lindl. Leaves ovate; raceme loose and slender; flowers very small, on minutely glandular-pubescent pedicels twice the length of the ovary; lip linear, 3–4 times the length of the sepals, 2-parted, the divisions linear-setaceous.—Damp thickets, Oswego Co., N. Y., and from N. J. to Fla. June.
[*][*] Column longer, arching or straightish.
3. L. convallarioìdes, Nutt. Plant 4–9´ high; leaves oval or roundish, and sometimes a little heart-shaped (1–1½´ long); raceme loose, pubescent; pedicels slender, lip wedge-oblong, 2-lobed at the dilated apex, and 1-toothed on each side at the base, nearly twice the length of the narrowly lanceolate spreading sepals, purplish, {1/3}´ long.—Damp mossy woods, N. New Eng. to Mich., Minn., and northward, and south in the mountains to N. C.
9. SPIRÁNTHES, Richard. Ladies' Tresses.
Perianth somewhat ringent, oblique on the ovary; the sepals and petals all narrow, mostly erect or connivent, the three upper pieces sticking together more or less, the two lower covering the base of the lip. Lip oblong, short stalked or sessile, the lower part involute around the column, and with a callous protuberance on each side of the base; the somewhat dilated summit spreading or recurved, crisped, wavy, or rarely toothed or lobed. Column short, oblique, bearing the ovate stigma on the front, and the sessile or short-stalked (mostly acute or pointed) 2-celled erect anther on the back. Pollen-masses 2 (one in each cell), narrowly obovate, each 2-cleft, and split into thin and tender plates of granular pollen united by elastic threads, and soon adhering at base to the narrow boat-shaped viscid gland, which is set in the slender or tapering thin beak terminating the column. After the removal of the gland, the beak is left as a 2-toothed or 2-forked tip.—Roots clustered-tuberous; stem more or less naked above, leaf-bearing below or at the base. Flowers small (ours all white or greenish-white), bent horizontally, 1–3-ranked in a spike, which is commonly more or less spirally twisted (whence the name, from σπείρα, a coil or curl, and ἄνθος, flower).