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168 



PBOFESSOB LIKDLEY OK 



A Note on Spiranthes gemmipara. By Professor Lindlet, 



F.E.S., r,L.S. &e. 



[Read January 20th, 1857.] 



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With the permission of the Society, I venture to draw its atten- 

 tion to a point in Irish botany which has not yet been sufficiently 

 examined. In the year 1828 Sir James Smith published in his 

 ' English riora * (iv. 36) an accoimt of a Neottia gemmipara which 

 had been discovered in August 1810, near Cork, by Drummond, 

 and at the same time communicated to him by the Rev. Mr. Hincks- 

 Smith compared it to his Neottia spiralis^ from which he distm- 

 guished it by the leaves being " lanceolate and as tall as the stalk. 

 Spike 3-ranked, twisted. Bracteas smooth." 



. Subsequently a figure, taken from the dried specimen in Smith's 

 Herbarium, was published in the * Supplement to English Botany,' 

 t, 2786 ; and was afterwards copied by the younger Keichenbach, 

 in 1851, into his elaborate * Orchidese in Flora Germanica recen- 

 sitsd.' So early, however, as September 1840, 1 had examined the 

 specimen in the Smithian Herbarium", and referred it to the* genus 

 Spiranthes (Gen. et Sp. Orch. p. 464), with the remark that it 

 so much resembled Spiranthes Bomanzoffiana, a TJnalaschka plant, 

 that I coidd scarcely doubt the identity of the two. Nevertheless, 

 Prof. Eeichenbach, misled by the only published figure, expressed 

 a doubt whether the plant even belonged to the genus Spiranthes 

 (Orch. in Fl. Germ. p. 154). This acute Orchidologist was not 

 aware that, so long before as 1844, it had been made the subject of 

 a special memoir laid by Mr. Babington before this Society, and 

 afterwards published in our Transactions (xix. p. 261. t. 32). Since 

 that time it has, I believe, remained unnoticed by aU writers on 

 critical botany. A recent examination of the Neottian Orchids 

 of the Old World, the result of which is now before the Society 

 in another communication, has rendered it necessary to recon- 

 sider the relation which the Irish Spiranthes bears to other species, 

 and the conclusion at which I have arrived forms the subject of the 

 present note. 



Of Spiranthes gemmipara I possess two authentic specimens, for 

 which I am indebted to the kindness of Lord Berehav^n, the 

 present Earl of Bandon, on whose estate, near Castletown, the 

 spfecies occurs. Both were gathered at the end of August 1843. 

 These correspond so nearly with the description given by Mr. Ba- 

 bington, that a redescription would be superfluous. The only cir- 



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