doubt and uncertainty as the Neoftia gemmipara of Sir James 
Smith. It was discovered rather more than half a century ago, 
that is, in August 1810, “near Castletown, opposite to Bear- 
haven, on the northern side of Bantry Bay, county of Cork, Ire- 
land,” by Mr. James Drummond, at that time Curator of the 
Cork Botanic Garden, and the same who so eminently distin- 
guished himself by his botanical researches in Western Australia, 
We are not aware that another European locality has ever been 
detected. Strange-to say, it appears to have attracted no public 
attention till 1828, when Sir James Smith described it in his Eng- 
lish Flora, v. 4. p. 36, under the name of Weottia gemmipara, sO 
called from some “buds, destined to flower the following year, 
formed among the. leaves at the bottom of the flower-stalk.” 
Lindley, in his ‘Synopsis to the British Flora,’ referred the 
plant correctly to Spiranthes, preserving the specific name, and 
sanctioning the species. A very unsatisfactory figure appeared 
in 1834, in the Supplement to‘ English Botany,’ t. 2786, from an 
imperfectly developed and probably dried specimen. In 1844, 
Mr. Babington read an excellent paper “ On the Weottia gem- 
mipara of Smith” to the Linnzean Society. In the preparation 
of that memoir, that gentleman consulted the Hookerian Her- 
barium, and I directed his attention to my numerous specimens 
of the North American Spiranthes cernua (Ophrys, L.), as pro- 
bably identical with our Irish plant ; and the result of his exami- 
nation confirmed that opinion, and, as I had hoped, settled the 
question. Dr. Lindley, however, in a very able paper, read be- 
fore the Linnean Society in 1857, controverted this opinion, 
alluding to its close affinity with S. Romanzofiana* (so near that 
they may possibly be identical), retaining it however as a dis- 
tint species, peculiar to the south-east of Ireland, under the ori- 
ginal name, gemmipara, observing, that “we must require very 
strong proof that a plant hitherto unknown, except in the south- 
east of Ireland, is the same as a common North American 
species.” In reference to this remark, I may observe, that 
Najas flewilis, a plant “ common in ponds and slow streams in 
* With regard to the Spiranthes Romanzoffiana, in point of locality, it may be 
- ranked with what has been hitherto known of the S. gemmipara, that is, that 
only one station has been recorded for it, and only one person has been fortu- 
nate enough to see it, growing “in alveo turfoso convallium infimorum insule 
Unalashee,” and that is Von Chamisso himself, to whom I am indebted for well- 
dried specimens. I could not undertake from them to say whether the plant be 
specifically distinct ‘or not. They are smaller than S. cernua, and of much less 
robust habit ; the flowers are still smaller in proportion, and narrower, more cy- 
lindrical, and the bracteas always much exceed the flowers in length. Ledebour, 
indeed, observes, “ Habitus ob spice densitatem et. bractearum magnitudinem in 
hoe genere maxime singularis.” Reichenbach’s three figures (7.c.) are very satis- 
factory representations of the natural size: but the analysis, being all done from 
the dried, cannot perhaps be so much depended upon, 
