TWO NEW ORCHID HYBRIDS. 



By Colonel M. J. Godfery, F.L.S. 



(Plate 557.) 



1. X SeHAPICAMPTIS F0RP.ESIT. 



(Serapias Lingua L. x Anacamptis pyramidalis Rich.) 

 Stem 22 cm. solid, cylindrical, glabrous. Leaves not gathered.. 

 Spike lax, 10-flowered. Ovary long (2| cm.), slender. Bracts 

 membranous, almost equal to ovary, narrow, lanceolate, acuminate, 

 3-nerved, tinged violet-red. Sepals free, spreading, lanceolate, acu- 

 minate, reddish violet, paler than lip, midrib darker, a faint nerve on 

 one side only. Petals slightly shorter, lanceolate, acuminate, darker 

 red-violet. Lip flat, 3-lobed, side-lobes semi-orbicular, entire, mid- 

 lobe narrow, lanceolate, acute, mucronate, concolorous, deep crimson, 

 of a peculiarly brilliant almost velvety appearance, covered with 

 microscopic short hyaline papilla?. Column short, whitish, its walls 

 produced on lip in two short raised slightly convergent sharp-edged 

 ridges, concolorous with lip. Anther short, pear-shaped, apiculate, 

 greenish. Fold of stigma clavate, red-violet. Rostellum violet. 

 Viscid gland single, transversely oval. Pollinia small, dark brown. 

 Caudicies ribbon-like, bright yellow. Stigma white. 



The specimen described was found on May 5th, 1920, at Bordi- 

 ghera, Italy, and sent to me by Colonel A. M. Forbes, who wrote : — 

 " The orchids growing near it in quantities were pyramidalis and 

 Serapias lingua, with one small group of 8. longipetala about 

 40 vards away. We have never seen a specimen of O. laxiflora 

 in that neighbourhood (though there are some at the mouth of the 

 Nervia), nor of papilionacea, which we have never found yet. My 

 wife thoroughly searched the locality where she found it, but could 

 not find any other specimen, but there was one O. tridentata on a 

 lower olive-terrace." 



The plant suggests so strongly the hybrids between Serapias and 

 Orchis that it is evidently nearly allied to them. That the dominant 

 parent is a Serapias there can be no doubt whatever, and it is almost 

 equally certain that it is S. lingua. The size of the flower and 

 of the' lip suggest that species, and the shape of the lip is practically 

 identical with that of lingua when flattened out — very different from 

 the broad lip of cordigera, and equally so from the long one of 

 longipetala. Hybrids between both the latter specie* and Orchis 

 have a very much larger, broader, and more curved mid-lobe, much 

 crisped and frilled at the edges, whilst in our plant the lip is flat in 

 its natural position, with no fullness or frilling of any kind. More- 

 over, in both S. cordigera and 8. longipetala the mid-lobe is densely 

 covered with conspicuous hairs, whilst in $. lingua, though hairs 

 exist, they are so much slenderer and fewer that the lip has often 

 been described as glabrous. The lip in the present hybrid is glabrous 

 except for microscopic papillae invisible to the naked eye. Finally, 

 the guiding-plates or callosities at the base of the lip in 8. longipetala 

 are distinctly divergent ; in our plant they are slightly convergent. 

 Journal of Botany.— Vol. 59. [March, 1921.] r 



