THE PROBLEM OP THE BKITISH MARSH ORCHIDS 139 



tion of O. incarnata, he has never found any marsh orchid on the 

 Continent with hollow stem and unspotted leaves (except O. paUistris, 

 which is otherwise unmistakable). He is confident that he has 

 never seen, amongst the common spotted forms of O. latifolia, plants 

 with similar flowers and unspotted leaves. These spotted latifolia, 

 then, could not possibly be hybrids — there was no plain-leaved parent 

 and no maculata to be found in the neighbourhood. 



He also says that *' on the Continent you ma}^ find undoubted 

 latifolia growing in quantity with no other marsh orchis." Personally 

 I have always found latifolia on the Continent with spotted leaves, 

 but I have never seen anything approaching prcetermissa. My ex- 

 perience, however, only extends to a few scattered localities in 

 Southern France, Switzerland, and Italy — I know nothing of Northern 

 France or Central Europe. Ascherson and Graebner (Syn. Mitt. 

 eur. Fl. iii. p. 732) say of the Central European plant that the leaves 

 are usually all marked with black-brown spots, often confluent, 

 oftener faint, more rarely absent. I do not think any serious doubt 

 can be entertained that the plant known on the Continent as O. lati- 

 folia L. usually has spotted leaves. The spots, however, are not 

 always ringed. Mr. St. Quintin says that from recollection he 

 would say that the alpine plants referred to above did not always 

 have ringed spots ; in some, if not in many cases, the spots were 

 solid. Mr. Kaine tells me that at Hyeres latifolia grows with 

 unspotted leaves, and Brebisson in his Flore de Normandie says the 

 leaves are " rarement tachees de brun." These onay he prcetermissay 

 but the fact remains that ring-leaved and spotted-leaved latifolia 

 grow abundantly where p^^cBtermissa does not exist. 



The Eev. E. S. Marshall tells me {in lit.) that he found at 

 Wexford a plant with short blotched leaves which seemed to agree 

 exactly with one in Herb. Brit. Mus. gathered by Messrs. Britten 

 and Nicholson in June 1882 in Co. Waterford, and named by H. G. 

 Keichenbach as O. latifolia var. brevifolia, and that he obtained 

 other plants in W. Mayo and Caithness, which he referred to this 

 same variety, and noted at the time as having the leaves faintly 

 ring-spotted. He adds " I do not think that these three gatherings 

 come under 0. prcetermissa ; nor are they likely to be hybrids, for 

 which I have kept a good look out." He also mentions that a plant 

 with spotted leaves sent to him from Winchester agrees very well 

 indeed with Schulze's figure of O. latifolia L. (plate 21). I was 

 present at the gathering of this specimen, which was our ordinary 

 ring-spotted plant. 



I sent a water-colour drawing of O. prcetermissa to Dr. Keller, 

 of Aarau, who has a very wide experience of European Orchids. He 

 did not say, as one might have expected, " This is O. latifolia L.," 

 which he assuredly would have done had he considered it to be that 

 species, but suggested that it might be O. Traunsteineri A. II. Hus- 

 sowii Asch. & Graebn. Syn. iii. 730 (1907) ; their description, 

 howover, does not seem to fit prcetermissa very well. For the above 

 reasons it would seem that while O. j)rcetermissa is no doubt the 

 O. latifolia of most English authors, it is open to question whether it 

 is 0. latifolia L. as understood on the Continent. 



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