on the Orchis militaris. ; AK 68 
ORCHIS TEPHROSANTHOS. 
This plant is well figured in the first and. second editions of 
Gerard, p. 156, no. 1. p. 205, no. 2. though under a different name in 
each, and copied from them into Parkinson, p. 1344, no. 4. These 
| old authors, however, do not mention it as found in England. The 
earliest information we have of this fact, if we except the allusion 
to it hy Merett, already stated, is recorded in Ray's Catalogus Plan- 
tarum, where we learn that it was discovered by Mr. Brown on 
“the hills by the river Thames, near Cawsham-Bridge, a mile from 
Iteading, and on several other hills on the other side the water to- 
wards Wallingford." ‘This last habitat is omitted in the first edi- 
tion of the Synopsis. Ray tells us in his Journey on the Conti- 
nent, that he found it near Geneva, and that he had recently ob- 
served itin England; and yet it might be suspected that he never 
gathered it himself at Caversham (the modern name) in Oxford- 
shire, since he records the place in Gibson's Camden as being in 
Berkshire. It is found at present on the rising ground among the 
bushes to the west of the great chalk-pit facing the river Thames ; 
butt is an uncertain plant, like many other Orchidee, being found 
some years very abundantly, and then altogether as sparingly. 
The two habitats quoted in Flora Britannica, from Ray and Sib- 
thorp, for this plant, are the same spot. That this is the fephro- 
santhos of Willdenow there can be no doubt. It takes its trivial 
name from the ash-coloured spike; but this would have been 
equally applicable to Bauhin’s plant, Orchis galea et alis cinereis, 
Hist. ii. p. 755, which seems not to belong to it, though quoted 
by Ray, but to O. militaris of Eng. Bot. or of Willdenow. 
E might have been supposed that Withering, in his second edi- 
tion of the Arrangement, intended our present species by his æ, 
since he has uniformly quoted synonyms and figures which refer 
"uni XIL F to 
