Habenaria repens
Habenaria
floating orchid, habenaria acuática, water orchid, water-spider orchid, waterspider bog orchid, waterspider false reinorchid
bog orchid, rein orchid
scattered along basal portion of stem, both slender and tuberous, fleshy;
tuberoids usually spheroid.
leaves basal, abruptly reduced to bracts or scattered, gradually reduced toward inflorescence.
scattered along stem and gradually reduced to sheathing bracts;
blade ascending, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate, narrowly elliptic, or oblanceolate, 3–25 × 1–4.5 cm.
several, alternate, ascending to spreading, conduplicate, bases sheathing stem.
floral bracts spreading to ascending, lanceolate, 15–90 × 5–12 mm.
terminal, lax to rather dense spicate racemes;
bracts large and foliaceous to reduced.
ascending, not showy;
sepals 3–7 × 3–4 mm;
dorsal sepal shallowly concave;
lateral sepals reflexed-spreading;
petals greenish, lamina ascending, falcate, 3–7 × 1 mm, lateral lobe arcuately spreading-ascending, filiform, slightly to markedly exceeding petal;
lip greenish, middle lobe descending, linear, 4–7 × 1 mm, lateral lobes ascending-spreading, filiform, 5–11 mm;
spur slenderly cylindric to scarcely club-shaped, 0.8–1.4 cm;
ovaries 9–15 mm.
few to many, resupinate, pedicellate, sometimes showy;
petals 2-lobed, lateral lobe on abaxial margin;
lip 3-lobed, spurred at base;
pollinaria 2;
pollinia 2;
viscidia free;
stigma with 2 fleshy processes flanking or encircling mouth of spur.
capsules, ellipsoid.
on short pedicel, nearly erect, 8–15 × 3–7 mm,
Habenaria repens
Habenaria
Habenaria repens is remarkable in sometimes being truly aquatic. Often forming floating mats, the plants then are commonly decumbent, at least basally, and new shoots and slender roots arise abundantly from much of the length of the stem. A few spheroid tuberoids are sometimes produced from roots arising at wide intervals. Other roots bear new shoots some decimeters from the parent stem; the distal portion of the root then commonly enlarges into a slenderly lance-fusiform tuberoid.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Species ca. 600 (4 in the flora).
A recently identified species, Habenaria macroceratitis, is described but not fully treated here.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Lateral lobes of lip and petals greatly reduced; lip hastate-auriculate; petals auriculate on abaxial margin. | H. odontopetala |
1. Lateral lobes of lip and petals prominently filiform, nearly equal to or exceeding other lobes; lip conspicuously 3-lobed; petals conspicuously 2-lobed. | → 2 |
2. Spur more than 4 cm (often much more). | H. quinqueseta |
2. Spur at most 2 cm (often much shorter). | → 3 |
3. Leaves basal, spreading, broadly elliptic to ovate or obovate; spur slenderly clavate. | H. distans |
3. Leaves scattered along length of stem, ascending, linear-lanceolate to lanceolate, narrowly elliptic, or oblanceolate; spur slenderly cylindric to scarcely clavate. | H. repens |
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