A NEW MARSH ORCHIS 167 



carnata or O. prcEtermissa is the most likely conjecture. It may be 

 said that a few plants of O. irrcetermissa are growing in the same 

 field with O. pur pur ell a ; but no.O. incarnata. The nearest station 

 for the latter, of which we know, is seven miles away at least. 



(c) The leaves are normally spotted. If it were not for this fact, 

 the plant would be certainly set down as a dwarf form of O.pulchella. 

 As it is, on the ground of these spots the influence of O. maculata 

 may be suggested, and certainly will be by those who do not admit 

 any plants with spots to be other than O. maculata and its hybrids. 

 In most undoubted hj^brids, however, the marks tend to be somewhat 

 irregular patches, or, in the opinion of some, rings often very faint, 

 but here they are always very small spots, fairly well-defined and of 

 a uniform dark brown colour. Sometimes they are thickly scattered 

 over the whole leaf, but often are only found near the tip, and then 

 are easily overlooked. Sometimes they are absent. To us the facts 

 suggest not a cross, but a mutation in the direction of spots. 



(d) The plants are normally dwarfs. It may be difficult to 

 decide in many cases when the dwarf character is merely due to 

 impoverishment and when it is constitutional. The var. dunensis of 

 O. incarnata is a case in point. We think in this case {O. purpu- 

 rella) that the dwarf habit is constitutional. The plants grow in a 

 field side by side with hundreds of tall orchids of other species. 

 Nineteen twentieths of them will be 35 cm. high or less. A very 

 fine hybrid of the species with O. latifolia (as we think) is found in 

 two forms, both tall and short, the two forms intermixed wdthin the 

 same square yard of ground, and these may be Mendelian segregates 

 with tall and dwarf characters. Here also is a case in which external 

 conditions might favour a dwarf race. The field is an old pasture, 

 and the plants are at their best about June 15. Two years running, 

 when going to the field a little later than that date, we have had the 

 sorrow of finding that a lot of young calves had been turned into the 

 field and had cut off the heads of a great many flowers, often spoiling 

 our observations. 



Under such conditions, if Darwinian principles have any practical 

 weight at all, we are entitled to say that a dwarf strain would have 

 a better chance of establishing itself than a tall one. As a matter of 

 fact, the plants of O. purpurella were very little interfered with. 



Our belief that we have here a good species is based on the con- 

 vergence of these characters, not specially on any one of them more 

 than another. The species differs from O. incarnata in having 

 spotted Is. and flat, pointed, slightly ^;^curved lip, of bright purj^le 

 with heavy markings, with less erect and narrow Is. It agrees with 

 it in having rather small fls,, with very wide throat and very stout 

 spur, and broad, erect sepals. 



It differs from O. prattermissa in having spotted Is. and pointed, 

 incurved lip. The flower is very near indeed in colour and markings 

 to O. prcetermissa v, pulchella (Druce). Apart from the dwarf 

 habit and spots, the leaf-scheme is one that would suit ordinary 

 O. prcetermissa but not v, puJchella, which as a rule is much more 

 slender. 



It differs from O. latifolia in the foi-m of lip, tlie bright colour 



