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Plate 56] LISTEKA SPIBANTHES 157
Listera ovata, E. Br.
Bootstock short, giving off numerous thick root-fibres.
Stem
f-f in. long, enclosed within the leaf-sheaths, and with 1
empty sheath at the base. Leaves 2, stalkless, almost opposite,
2-4 in. long, broadly elliptic, many-nerved. Flower-stalk
round, J-f in. long, with a few, scattered, egg-shaped, longpointed
bracts below the raceme. Eaceme 3-6 in. long, laxly
many-flowered ; floral bract about as long as the pedicel,
egg-shaped, long-pointed. Flowers i in. long. Sepals and
petals of almost equal length. Sepals egg-shaped, deep
green. Petals linear-oblong, pale green. Lip sharply bent
down, twice as long as the sepals, yellowish, linear-inversely
egg-shaped, deeply notched, upper surface with a linear,
nectar-secreting groove towards the base.
Floivers. June, July.
Locality. Gur^B Valley, 7,000-8,000 ft. ; Sind Valley.
Distribution. Throughout Europe to the Ural and
Caucasus Mountains.
SPIRANTHES, Eich.
(From the Greek speira, a spiral, and antlws. a flower, alluding to
the spiral arrangement of the flowers.)
Fig. 5. Spiranthes australis, Lindl. Lady's Tresses.
A slightly hairy, terrestrial herb. Eoot-tibres thick and
fleshy. Stems stout or slender, up to 1^ ft. high. Leaves
alternate, clustered near the base of the stem, 2-4 in.
long, shortly sheathing, linear or inversely lance-shaped.
Flowers very small, white or pink, crowded in a spiral,
slender spike 2-6 in. long ; bracts egg-shaped, longer than
the ovary. Sepals lance-shaped, the 2 side ones spreading, the
upper one combined with the petals to form a 3-lobed hood
enclosing the column, tips recurved. Lip oblong, crisped,
at its base saccate and having 2 glands, tip dilated, recurved ;
no spur. Capsule about i in. long, ridged, hairy.
Flowers. Throughout the summer.
Locality.
Harwan.
Distribution. W. Himalaya, up to 10,000 ft., Nepal,
Sikkim, Assam, Peninsular India, N.W. Frontier, from
Afghanistan to Europe, N. Asia, China, Java, Australia,
New Zealand, N. America.