1G8 THE .TOUR^^AT. OF POTANT 



and lieav}^ pattern, in its small size and the minute dots on the leaves. 

 It also has the spur proportionately stouter. It di:ffers completely 

 from a beautiful form of O. latifolia growing in the same field, with 

 which (as we think) it freely hybridizes. 



The most potent objection to recording this plant as a neAv species 

 is that it might turn out to be O. cruenta 0. F. Muell. This plant 

 is described and figured in Flora Danica. There is agreement, at 

 least, in the description of the lip as " indiviso, subcordato, crenato " ; 

 but the plate (t. 876) shows copiously blotched Is. and a very short 

 spike of dull purple fls. The colour is probably wrong. At any 

 i-ate, as the late Mr. Hunnybun suggested in a letter, the term 

 " cruenta " was probably given originally to a red-purple plant. The 

 lips are much longer than wide, irregular, and with rather light 

 markings. Here, apart from the undivided lip, all the details di:ffier. 

 In Reich. Icones Fl. Germ. 395, O. cruenta has a Hp very hke that 

 in Fl. Dan. We have seen a drawing by Mr. Hunnybun of a Swiss 

 plant which is pi-obably O. cruenta, with heavily -spotted Is., lips 

 irregular and vai-ying much in form, with very narrow markings. 

 One is like the Fl. Dan. lip, but others are deeply trilobed, in any 

 case quite unlike those of our plant. The tlowers were almost of a 

 black-red. ileichenbach, as we noted above, emphasizes the chamcter 

 of the entire lip, but Klinge (Acta. Hort. Petrop. xvii. (1899)) puts 

 O. cruenta into class CVl. of his group Dactylorclus, along with 

 O. incarnata as tlie only other member of the group, and he describes 

 the lip as trilobate or subtrilobate ! We conclude, without having 

 ever seen a Continental plant, that it would be quite precarious to 

 identify the Aberystwyth plant as O. cruenta. 



O. cruenta 0. F. Mueller is recorded for Britain in Journ. Bot. 

 1899, )). 37, by Mr. Herbert Goss. He found it plentiful in two or 

 three bogs on the fells between Borrowdale and AVatendlath, and 

 considered it stunted form of O. latifolia. Some specimens were 

 sent to Mr. R. A. Rolfe, who identified it as O. cruenta. Since then 

 other botanists have searched for it in vain in the same district ; but 

 Mr. Druce has gathered a plant in Durham which has been passed by 

 Mr. Rolfe as 0. cruenta. 



At this point we may take up the question of the plant which we 

 have assigned to 0. purinirella as form B. In 1916 we received 

 specimens both from Ari-an and from Hawkshead, Ambleside, which 

 is not very far from Borrowdale, of which some Avere sent to Mr. 

 Druce and' to Kew. In both cases their identification with O. cruenta 

 was favoured : see Bot. Exch. Club Report, iv. 5, p. 503. The 

 following is taken from a letter from Kew dated Aug. 15, 1916: 

 " It can be definitely stated that these specimens agree with the 

 one previously recorded from Cumberland \i. e. Mr. Goss's specimen] 

 also with the Scandinavian specimens, including the important lip- 

 character, while none of them show the leaves heavily blotched with 

 brown as in the original figure in the Flora Danica.'' Also 

 Mr. Druce : " I think it must go to cruenta, although the shape of 

 the lip is not quite identical and it is less strongly maculate. It is 

 iilmost identical with the plant passed as cruenta by Rolfe, which I 

 .gathered in Durham.' 



