Monographs Details:
Authority:
Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.
Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.
Family:
Orchidaceae
Orchidaceae
Description:
Species Description - Conspicuous by long, upright clusters of nearly stalkless white flowers, growing on wet or moist banks, hillsides or cliffs, this terrestrial orchid is occasional at lower and middle elevations in Porto Rico, and grows in similar situations nearly all over the West Indies, except the Bahama Islands, ranging into northern South America. Like other ground Orchids the plant is difficult to cultivate; it is one of the most attractive of West Indian, herbaceous wild flowers. No Spanish name is recorded. Habenaria (Latin, thong-like, with reference to the spur of the flower) a genus established by Willdenow in 1806, comprises 50, or more, species of ground orchids, natives of warm-temperate and tropical regions. They are upright, unbranched herbs, with coarsely fibrous, or tuberous roots, their leaves alternate, or basal. The flowers form a long, terminal cluster, the individual ones stalkless, or short-stalked, and subtended by narrow bracts; the 3 sepals are separate, or they cohere at the base; the petals are 2-parted, or undivided; the lip is 3-parted, or undivided, and bears a usually long spur at its base; the column is short, the anther 2-celled. The fruit is an oblong, many-seeded capsule.
Species Description - Conspicuous by long, upright clusters of nearly stalkless white flowers, growing on wet or moist banks, hillsides or cliffs, this terrestrial orchid is occasional at lower and middle elevations in Porto Rico, and grows in similar situations nearly all over the West Indies, except the Bahama Islands, ranging into northern South America. Like other ground Orchids the plant is difficult to cultivate; it is one of the most attractive of West Indian, herbaceous wild flowers. No Spanish name is recorded. Habenaria (Latin, thong-like, with reference to the spur of the flower) a genus established by Willdenow in 1806, comprises 50, or more, species of ground orchids, natives of warm-temperate and tropical regions. They are upright, unbranched herbs, with coarsely fibrous, or tuberous roots, their leaves alternate, or basal. The flowers form a long, terminal cluster, the individual ones stalkless, or short-stalked, and subtended by narrow bracts; the 3 sepals are separate, or they cohere at the base; the petals are 2-parted, or undivided; the lip is 3-parted, or undivided, and bears a usually long spur at its base; the column is short, the anther 2-celled. The fruit is an oblong, many-seeded capsule.
Discussion:
White Ground Orchid Orchid Family Orchis monorrhiza Swartz, Prodromus Flora Indiae Occidentalis 118.1788. Habenaria maculosa Lindley, The Genera and Species of Orchidaceous Plants 309. 1835. Habenaria monorrhiza Reichenbach, Berichte der Deutschen Botanicher Gesellschaft 3: 274. 1835.
White Ground Orchid Orchid Family Orchis monorrhiza Swartz, Prodromus Flora Indiae Occidentalis 118.1788. Habenaria maculosa Lindley, The Genera and Species of Orchidaceous Plants 309. 1835. Habenaria monorrhiza Reichenbach, Berichte der Deutschen Botanicher Gesellschaft 3: 274. 1835.
Multimedia:
