226 NEW PLANTS, ETC., FROM THE SOCIETY'S GARDEN. 



25. Ophrys mammosa. Desfontaines, in the Annales da 

 Museum, vol. 10, t. 15. 



In the same collection as furnished the rarity just described 

 was obtained anotiier Ophrys, which is 

 apparently the obscure plant hitheito only 

 known from a drawing by Aubriet, in the 

 Museum of Natural History of Paris, and 

 called mammosa because of its having two 

 prominent spaces on the side of ils lip. 

 Here the flowers are much larger than in 

 the last : the petals have a rosy tinge, and 

 form, with the green sepals, a flat circle ; 

 the lip is a deep chocolate brown, downy, 

 nearly square in its outline, with a pair of 

 parallel bluish liiu^s passing down the middle. 



It is a very curious thing, nearly allied to O. ferrum eqtiinum 

 (the Horse-shoe Ophrys) ; a species that, however, wants the two 

 mammae on the lip, which moreover is more lozenge-shaped and 

 irregularly wavy on its edge. 



Both these plants are the subject of an experiment now in 

 progress in the cultivation of terrestrial Orchids, the result of 

 which will be communicated to the Society hereafter. 



July 5, 1848. 



