1885.] NOTES ON BRITISH ORCHIDS. 305 



NOTES ON BRITISH OECniDS. 



BY A. D. WEBSTEK. 



Xo. V. 



Gemis 9. — Neatiia. — Distinguished as a genus from. Listeru by the brown stems 

 witli sheathing scales instead of leaves. Pollen masses two, powdery, glands 

 connate. 



Neottia Nidtis-ovis (bird's nest Neottia). — Root composed of a dense mass of 

 thick, cylindrical, succulent fibres. Stem robust, over one foot in height, desti- 

 tute of leaves, but clothed instead with several loose, sheathing, pale-brown 

 scales. Spike rather dense, excejjt at the base, and with a few distant tlowers of 

 a pale brown in every part. Sepals and j^etals incurved. Lip decurved, concave, 

 and cloven at the extremity into two blunt, rounded, widely converging lobes. 



rjnilLS plant is supposed by not a few to be parasitic ; but such is 

 -1- not the case, although the tannin and other matter of beech and 

 oak leaves is certainly conducive to its growtli, which may account for 

 its being usually found beneath the shade of these trees. No doubt, 

 the fact of this plant being found beneath the shade of the beech 

 and oak, combined with its pallid hue and general resemblance to 

 the Orobunclic, has given rise to what has now become too well- 

 founded, viz. that the plant is parasitic. But it is not so. The 

 mysterious appearance and disappearance of this plant has also been 

 frequently noted and commented upon, without any satisfactory 

 explanation being given ; but now that the nature of the plant and 

 its peculiar method of propagation is fully understood, any little 

 mystery is soon cleared up. The plant dies after flowering, but is 

 capable of reproducing a new plant from the point of each of its 

 fibres after they have become disengaged or fallen apart from the 

 parent root-stock ; the extreme point becoming rye or shool, which 

 increases in size imder ground till fully matured, when it pushes up 

 vigorously, flowers, dies down again, and is reproduced in the same 

 extraordinary manner. As the young plants never appear above 

 ground until of a flowering size (which, I believe, requires five 

 years), the appearance and disappearance of the plant is readily 

 accounted for. As regards soil, the Neottia seems to prefer that of 

 a stiff retentive nature, such as loam or clay ; indeed, the soil in 

 which it is generally found is so hard as to render the lifting of a 

 plant uninjured a task that is by no means easily accomplished. 

 The plant is incapable of cidtivation, at least such I have found 

 the case, and I am not aware that any one has been successful. By 

 removing a plant with a good ball of earth attached, we have 

 succeeded in getting it to perfect the flo\^'ering stem ; but as regards 



