Habenaria repens Nutt. 1818 SECTION Leptoceras
Photos by © Jay Pfahl
Photo by © John Mason
Photos by © Val Keller
Drawing by © Ames
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Common Name The Crawling Habenaria - Water-Spider Orchid
Flower Size .8" [2 cm]
Found from North Carolina to Florida and west to Arkansas and Texas and then south through Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Fr Guyana, Surinam, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and Argentina as well as Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago at elevations of 25 to 3000 meters as a small to large sized, hot to cold growing terrestrial in standing water as an aquatic orchid in bogs, roadside ditches and canals or as a terrestrial in marshy areas and is the most wideranging Habenaria in the US. It has fig shaped tubers and hairy roots with an erect stem carrying several, linear-lanceolate, acute to acuminate, basally clasping leaves that are reduced to bracts towards the apex of the stem. This orchid can flower at any time of the year and occurs on a erect, densely flowered, terminal raceme with several to many [10 to 50] flowers.
"Similar to H amambayensis but differs in the smaller flowers with the dorsal sepal .12 to .28" x .16" versus .28 to .32 x .2 to .24" [3 to 7 mm x 4 versus 7 to 8 x 5 to 6 mm], and shorter lateral segments tot he petals and lip, lip lateral lobes .2 to .44" [5 to 1 mm] versus .36 to .64" [9 to 16 mm]. Also similar to H bicornis but differs mostly in the position of the anterior petal lobes which are pending in H bicornis and falcately upcurved in H repens. H setacea has similar flower segments but it has very narrow inear-filiform leaves about .08 to .12" [.2 to .3 cm] wide." Szlachetko & Kolanowska 2017
Synonyms Habenaria maxillaris Lindl. 1834; Habenaria nuttallii Small 1903; Habenaria palustris Acuña 1939; Habenaria pseudorepens Schltr. 1913; Habenaria radicans Griseb. 1866; Habenaria repens var. maxillaris (Lindl.) Garay 1978; Habenaria tricuspis A. Rich. 1850; Mesicera repens (Nutt.) Raf. 1836; Orchis repens (Nutt.) Raf. 1818; Platanthera foliosa Brongn. 1829; Platanthera repens (Nutt.) A.W. Wood 1861
References W3 Tropicos, Kew Monocot list , IPNI ;
*Gen. N. Amer. Pl. 2: 190 Nutt 1818;
Neogenyton: 4 Raf. 1825 as Mesicera repens
Class-book Bot.: 685 Alph Wood 1861 as Platanthera repens;
Amer. Bot. Fl.: 328 Alph Wood 1870 as Orchis repens
Xenia Orchidaceae Vol 3 Reichenbach 1878;
Studies in the Family Orchidaceae Vol 1 Ames 1905 ;
Studies in the Family Orchidaceae Vol 1 Ames 1905 Drawing fide;
Symbolae Antillanae Vol VI Orchidaceae Urban 1909;
Studies in the Family Orchidaceae Vol 4 Ames 1910;
Flora of Jamaica Fawcett & Rendle 1910;
Repert. Spec. Nov. Regni Veg. Beih. 7: 38 Colombia Schlechter 1920 as H maxillaris;
Flora Brasilica Vol XII I Hoehne 1940 drawing good;
Flora Brasilica Vol XII I Hoehne 1940 as H repens var gracilis;
Flora Brasilica Vol XII I Hoehne 1940 as H aranifera drawing ok;
Flora Brasilica Vol XII I Hoehne 1940 as H taubertiana drawing ok;
The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946
The Orchids of Panama L.O. Williams & P Allen 1946drawing good;
Native Orchids of North America Correll 1950 drawing fide;
Orchids of Guatemala Ames & Correl 1952
Orchids of Guatemala Ames & Correl 1952 drawing fide;
Orchids of Guatemala Ames & Correl 1952 as H maxillaris;
Orchids of Peru Vol 1 Schweinfurth 1958
Orchids of Peru Vol 1 Schweinfurth 1958 drawing fide;
Drawings of Florida Orchids Blanche Ames 1959 drawing fide;
Native Orchids of Trinidad Schultes 1960;
Venezuelan Orchids Vol 4 Dunsterville & Garay 1966;
AOS Bulletin Vol 38 No 6 1969 drawing fide;
Flora de Venezuela Foldats Volumen XV Part 1 1969 drawing fide;
The Native Orchids of Florida Luer 1972 drawing/photo fide;
Las Orquedias De El Salvador Vol 1 Hamer 1974 drawing ok/photo ok;
Orchidaceae Brasilenses Band 1 Pabst and Dungs 1975 drawing fide;
Orchids of Venezuela; Flora of Ecuador No 9 225[1] Garay 1978 drawing fide;
Flora of Ecuador No 9 225[1] Garay 1978 as H repens var maxillaris;
An Illustrated Field Guide Vol 2 Dunsterville & Garay 1979 drawing fide;
Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 113 Dodson 1980 drawing ok;
Icones Planetarum Tropicarum Plate 770 Dodson 1982 drawing ok;
Field Guide to the Orchids of North America Williams and Williams 1983 drawing good;
AOS Bulletin Vol 54 No 8 1985 photo fide;
Flora Novo-Galaciana Vol 16 McVaugh 1985;
The Orchids of Surinam Werkhoven 1986;
Catalogo Descriptivo de Las Orquideas Cubanas Acuna Gale 1987 as H palustris;
Catalogo Descriptivo de Las Orquideas Cubanas Acuna Gale 1987;
Orchids from The Coast Of Ecuador Arosemana, Jurado, Estrada and Konanz 1988;
Selbyana Vol 10 Orchids of Central America Hamer 1988 drawing fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 61 No 10 1992 photo fide;
Inventaire Taxonomique des Plantas de la Guyane Francaise II Les Orquidacees Cremers & Hoff 1992;
Field Guide to the Orchids of Panama and Costa Rica Dressler 1993;
Native Colombian Orchids Vol 5 COS 1994 photo fide;
An Orchid Flora Of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands Ackerman 1995 drawing fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 67 No 12 1998 photo fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 69 No 4 2000 photo;
Orchidaceae Antillanae Nir 2000;
Orchids of Venezuela [An illustrated field guide] Vol. 2 Ramiro and Carnevali 2000 drawing fide;
Harvard Pap. Bot. 5 #2: Carnevali etal. 2001;
Native Ecuadorian Orchids Vol 2 Dodson 2001 Photo fide;
Wild Orchids of Florida Brown 2002 photos/drawing fide;
The Wild Orchids of North America North of Mexico Brown 2003 photo/drawing fide;
Manual de Plantas de Costa Rica Vol III Hammel, Grayum, Herrera and Zamora 2003;
The Wild Orchids of North America North of Mexico Brown 2003 photo/drawing fide;
Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana Vol 7 Steyermark, Berry, Yatskievych and Holst 2003 drawing ok;
AOS Bulletin Vol 73 No 7 2004 photo fide;
Orchids of Mexico Hagsater, Soto, Salazar, Jimenez, Lopez & Dressler 2005 photo fide;
Orquideas da Chapada Diamantina Brito & Cribb 2005;
Wild Orchids of the Prairies and Great Plains Region of North America Brown 2006 photos/drawing fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 77 no 1 2008 photo fide;
Field Guide to the Wild Orchids of Texas Brown 2008 photo/drawing fide;
The Organ Mountain Range, its History and its Orchids Miller, Warren, Miller & Seehawer 2008 drawing/photo good;
AOS Bulletin Vol 80 #1 2011 photo fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 80 #8 2011 photo fide;
Orchids of French Guiana Szlachetko, Veyret, Mytnik-ejsmont, Sawicka, Rutkowski and Baranov 2012 drawing fide;
Orchid Flora of the Greater Antilles Ackerman 2014 drawing fide;
AOS Bulletin Vol 84 #3 2015 photo fide;
Orquidees du Bresil As Orquideas sa Serra do Castelo Vol 1 Chiron & Bolsanello 2015 photo/drawing fide;
Orquideas Tesoro de Colombia Vol 2 Ortiz & Uribe 2017 drawing /photo fide;
Materials to the Orchid Flora of Colombia Vol 1: 127 Szlachetko & Kolanowska 2017 drawing/photo fide;
Materials to the Orchid Flora of Colombia Vol 1: 169 Szlachetko & Kolanowska 2017 as H maxillaris drawing fide;
Orchid Genera and Species in Guatemala Archila, Szlachchetko, Chiron, Lipinska, Mystkowska and Bertolini 2018;
Orchid Digest Vol 83 #2 2019 photo fide;
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