Rhodora (Volume 8)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906. Excerpt: ... alive. A description of this plant was published in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal (6:331, 1822) where the name Habenaria macrophylla was given to it. Subsequently in his Exotic Flora, Dr. Hooker published an excellent plate of Habenaria Hookeri under the name H. orbiculata (Pursh) and in an elaborate note indicated the differences between this plant and Goldie's H. macrophylla, prompted to do so, presumably, by a letter which he had received from Dr. Torrey. It is, he writes, with much surprise I find that my friend Dr. Torrey of New York, in a letter which he had the goodness to write to me upon the subject of Mr. Goldie's paper, considers the H. Flowers of Habenaria orbiculata, Torr. (left) and H. macrophylla, Goldie (right), enlarged to the same scale. macrophylla, of which he judges of course only by the description to be the same with H. orbiculata of Pursh, notwithstanding that the differences between these two plants are fully and satisfactorily pointed out in the Memoir in question. It will suffice here to mention, that H. macrophylla is twice the size of the present individual in almost all its parts, and that the anther is at each angle at base, prolonged into a projecting horn. About fifteen years later in Flora Boreali-Americana (2: 197) Hooker corrected the treatment of the Exotic Flora, and reduced H. macrophylla to a synonym of H. orbiculata with the following explanation: This fine species, having been but ill defined by its first describer (Pursh), has been much misunderstood, and the preceding plant (H. Hookeri) was by myself, as well as by other botanists, both in America and in Europe, mistaken for it. From collateral evidence, however, Drs. Torrey and Gray were led to consider the present as the true orbiculata; and the co...