Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt:...coral-like root-stock." The lip, "slightly adherent to the base of the 2-edged straightish column," "is often more or less extended into a protuberance or "short spur coalescent with the ovary." The anther is "terminal, lid-like." The 4 pollenmasses are " soft-waxy or powdery, and have FlG. 32._root Of no stalks or connecting tissue." C. innata Corallorhiza. (Early Coral-root), and C. odontorhiza (Dragon-claw, Coral-tooth, Small Late Coral-root) are mentioned together here, although the latter belongs rather to July, in Vermont, because the next Orchid mentioned is a near relative and might be mistaken for them. C. innata, which Hooker says closely accords with the European species, is a low dingy-green herb bearing a few spurless flowers, and found in swampy or wet shaded places. Growing as far south as Georgia, it yet follows Calypso across the 60th parallel, but notwithstanding this extensive range, it is rare. C. odontorhiza is found in Florida, and Chapman makes the singular statement that although vernal in the North it does not bloom till September and October in the South. This Coral-root has a depression where its flower-spur should be. From its greater height, which may be sixteen inches, and its Sachs (Botanical Text Book) calls the Coral-roots, particularly C. innata, "saprophytes," because they "make use... of the material of other plants which are already in a state of decomposition." more numerous and purplish blossoms, it has a better claim to attention, but I fear that neither species will ever have its praises celebrated in any but the heaviest prose. Aplectrum hyemale, the Winter Aplectrum, has a bulb like a crocus, and on digging this up, two or more...