LISTERA RENIFORMIS.
Perennial, fleshy, deep green. Stem erect, 1-3 dm. tall, slender glabrous or nearly so below, densely glandular-pubescent above, simple ; leaves 2, opposite, about the middle of the stem, reniform or ovate-reniform, 1-3 cm. in diameter, apiculate or short acumi nate, glabrous above, more or less pubescent beneath, cordate or subcordate, sessile ; racemes 2-10 cm. long ; flowers greenish ; bracts lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, 3-5 mm. long, acute ; pedi cels slender, 4-7 mm. long, glabrate, or much less pubescent than the stem ; sepals oblong or linear oblong, about 3 mm. long, ob tuse or acutish, reflexed ; lip wedge-shaped, 6-7 mm. long, with 2 prominent teeth on both sides near the base, sharply cleft to near the middle, the lobes rounded ; capsules oval, 4-5 mm. long ; mature seeds not seen.
Damp thickets on the mountains of Maryland, Virginia and.
North Carolina, ranging from about moo to 1750 meters altitude.
Spring and summer.
It seems strange that this well marked species should have been so long associated with the northern Lzstera cOnvallarioides It is confined to the higher parts of the southern Alleghany mountains, while Lzsterct convallarioUles appears to have a northern transcontinental range suggesting that of Polygonum Douglaszi. Listera renifornzis differs from its northern relative in its more slender habit, the reniform type of the leaves, which are apiculate or short-acuminate at the apex and cordate or subcordate at the base, and the lip, which is sharply cleft, often nearly to the middle, by a V-shaped sinus. The leaf of Listera convallarioides is oval and obtuse at both ends, while the lip is cut by a U-shaped sinus.