the tubers above ground ; for this the simple remedy is lime- 
water, which is otherwise advantageous to this class of plants. 
Ophrys lutea is a native of Southern Europe, extending 
from Portugal to Crete and Smyrna, and of the opposite 
shore of the Mediterranean from Marocco almost to Tunis; 
it varies much in the breadth of the golden margin of the 
lip, which is sometimes reduced to a mere border, or al- 
together disappears, when the species becomes O. fusca, Tenore, 
us well illustrated in Mr. Moggridge’s beautiful “ Flora of 
Mentone” (tab. 46), where the question of the specific value of 
the characters of the genus Ophrys, is treated with scientific 
care, and illustrated with artistic skill, tending as it does to 
favour Linneus’s sagacious conclusion, that all the European 
species are referable to one, his O. insectifera. — 
Dzscr. Leaves spreading, linear-oblong, obtuse or subacute, 
pale-green, one and a half to two anda half inches long. Scape 
four to seven inches tall, stout, many-flowered. Bracts erect, 
sheathing, oblong, subacute, appressed. Fowers three-quarters 
to one inch in diameter. Sepals equal, oblong, obtuse, 
incurved, green. Pefads much smaller, linear-oblong, obtuse 
or truncate, yellow or yellow-green, Lip nearly quadrate, 
golden-yellow with a purple disk, and a contracted base, 
convex, three-lobed towards the tip; mid-lobe with two 
rounded lobules, lateral also rounded, rarely oblong; disk 
velvety, maroon-purple, with a forked polished blue or violet 
centre like that of O. Speculum, but smaller ; the tip varies 
extremely in shape, lobing, and the disposition and extent of 
these coloured bands.—/. D. H. 
_ Figs. 1, 2, and 3, spikes from different plants :—natural size ; 3, flower 
from fig. 1 :—magnified. 
