Leafy plants with thick fleshy roots and small greenish or whitish flowers in a long spike. Sepals and petals free and spreading. Lip entire. Beak of the stigma without appendages. Anther-sacs nearly parallel, wholly adnate. Glands naked. Pollinia granular. [Greek, marsh-orchis.]

A North American genus of about 15 species, differing from Lysias in the general habit and the almost parallel anther-sacs. Type species: Limnorchis hyperborea (L.) Rydb.

Flowers greenish; base of the lip little dilated.

1.

L. hyperborea.

Flowers white; base of the lip much dilated.

2.

L. dilatata.

I. Limnorchis Hyperborea (L.) Rydb. Tall Leafy Green Orchis

Fig. 1367

Orchis hyperborea L. Mant. 121. 1767.

Habenaria hyperborea R. Br. in Ait. Hort. Kew. Ed. 2,

5: 193. 1813. Orchis huronensis Nutt. Gen. 2: 189. 1818. Limnorchis huronensis Rydb. in Britton, Man. 294. 1901.

Stem rather stout, 8'-3° high. Leaves lanceolate, mostly acute, 2'-12' long, 6"-18" wide; spike narrow, 3'-8' long; flowers small, greenish or greenish yellow; sepals and petals ovate, obtuse, 2"-3" long; upper sepal slightly crenulate at the apex; lip lanceolate, entire, obtuse, about 3" long; spur about equalling the lip, shorter than the ovary, blunt, slightly incurved, sometimes clavate; anther-sacs parallel, diverging at the base; glands small; ovary more or less twisted.

In bogs and wet woods, Greenland to Alaska, New Jersey, Colorado and Oregon, Iceland. Northern green orchis. May-Aug.

L. media Rydb. is probably a hybrid of this species and the next. L. major (Lange) Rydb. is, apparently, restricted to Greenland.

I Limnorchis Hyperborea L Rydb Tall Leafy Green Or 1367

2. Limnorchis Dilatata (Pursh) Rydb. Tall White Bog Orchis

Fig. 1368

Orchis dilatata Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 588. 1814. Habenaria dilatata Hook. Exot. Fl. 2: pl. 93. 1825. L. fragrans Rydb. in Britton, Man. 294. 1901. L. dilatata Rydb. in Britton, Man. 294. 1901.

Stem slender, leafy, 1°-2° high. Leaves lanceolate, 3'-12' long, 4"-10" wide, obtuse or acute; spike 2'-10' long; bracts acute, the lower longer than the ovary, the upper shorter; flowers small, white, sometimes fragrant; sepals ovate to lanceolate, nearly 3" long; petals acute, lanceolate; lip entire, dilated or obtusely 3rlobed at the base, obtuse at the apex, about as long as the blunt incurved spur; anther-sacs nearly parallel; glands close together, strap-shaped, nearly as long as the pollinia and caudicle; stigma with a trowel-shaped beak between the bases of the anther-sacs.

In bogs and wet woods, Nova Scotia to Alaska, south to Maine, New York and Oregon. Northern white orchis. June-Sept. Consists of several races, differing in the shape of the sepals and petals and width of leaves.

Limnorchis graminifolia Rydb. of the northwest, with much narrower leaves, is recorded from Quebec.

2 Limnorchis Dilatata Pursh Rydb Tall White Bog Or 1368