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SHORT NOTES. 

 Middlesex Plants. — A recent leader in one of the London 

 journals, referring to the rapid extinction of rare plants in Great 

 Britain, especially instanced Middlesex as having lost fifty-eight 

 species within a comparatively recent period. This number is 

 obviously obtained from Trimen & Dyer's ' Flora,' and although the 

 actual loss is great enough to be deplored, it is happily not so great 

 as these figures indicate, for it is certain that several species thus 

 included have since been re-found, at least a fifth of them by 

 myself alone. Amongst this list of losses the Orchids were con- 

 spicuous ; indeed, all the less common species found a place there. 

 It may therefore be some satisfaction to learn that nearly all the 

 species hitherto recorded for the county were gathered last summer 

 during an hour's evening stroll upon the hills of our very limited 

 Chalk district. Thus Orchis mascula, 0. pyramidalis, 0. maculata 

 (in one case with all the flowers inverted), Ophrys apifera, 0. musci- 

 fera, Neottia Nidus-avis, and Gymnadenia conopsea were all gathered 

 within the space of 100 yards. This was the first appearance of 

 Gymnadenia above ground ; at all events, it had hitherto eluded 

 every search for it during many years, and probably it has not been 

 gathered since Collinson's last record about 1790; only a single 

 plant was seen, however. On another hill Ophrys apifera was 

 abundant, and Orchis pyramidalis in such profusion that in one spot 

 I counted seven plants growing in a circle of a few inches diameter. 

 In the copse skirting the hill was Habenaria chloroleuca ; in the 

 valley beneath, 0. incarnata; and further to the south, 0. latifolia. 

 I must confess that, seeing these orchids growing in such unusual 

 abundance around me, it seemed an unaccountable mystery how 

 they managed to get relegated to the limbo of " extincts " ! Taking 

 it for granted that Orchis purpurea was absolutely an error, O. 

 ustulata is now the only species wanting to complete Blackstone's 

 records. In his time (about 1737) he found it only " sparingly." 

 Collinson (about 1790) owns that he could " never find this sort," 

 so that it would appear to be irrecoverably lost. It is a curious 

 fact that all the records of the old collectors are from the great 

 " chalk-pit," where after many years' search I have never happened 

 upon an orchid of any land. Yet, as showing how tenaciously this 

 and certain other species cling to a habitat without spreading 

 beyond, in the woods intersected by the county boundary more 

 than one Orchid, Dentaria hulbifera, and Hordeum sylvaticum grow 

 on the Middlesex, and not on the Herts side, whilst Gephalanthera 

 yrandiflora and other plants are found in the Herts division only, 

 notwithstanding that soil and other conditions are exactly similar, 

 and that the plants in many instances grow at the very edge of the 

 almost imaginary line which divides the wood — little more than a 

 copse — into two artificial districts. With Habenaria bifolia secure 

 near Edgeware, and Orchis militaru elsewhere, we may hope that 

 our Orchids are safe for some time to come. It would indeed be 

 matter for congratulation if as much could be said for sundry other 

 plants which still linger on, but which we know too well are 

 doomed in the near future. — J. Benbow. 



