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These are, so far as I know, all the Orchidaceous plants known in our county. 

 I have seen it stated in a botanical work that " O. militaris is common in Bucking- 

 hamshire, Oxfordshire, and Herefordshire." I think that is an error so far as our 

 county is concerned. Neither Mr. Purchas, Mr. Lees, Mr. Lingwood, nor Mr. 

 Ley have any record of it, and the geological formations of the other counties 

 named differ widely from ours. 



That the Orchidacea are the most interesting of all our native wild flowers is 

 almost a truism. No other class has elicited so much study and research. None 

 others show so much contrivance and design : such adaptations of means to ends 

 Some of them are e.Ktremely sensitive-even the touch of a human hair is enough 

 to cause an immediate response. Wordsworth, "The Poet of Nature," might 

 have been watching an insect visiting a Lhtera ovata, or an 0. pyramuiahs when 

 he wrote the well-known lines- 

 It is my faith that every flower 

 Enjoys the air it breathes. 



There are peculiarities in the structure of Orchids which distinguish them from all 

 other classes in the floral kingdom. The quaint and curious mimicry of natural 

 objects-from which so many of them take their names -enhances their 

 singularity, and adds not a little to the zest with which the lover of nature searches 

 for them. The most distinguished naturalist of the present century. Professor 

 Darwin after twenty years of close, sustained, patient study of them, wrote one 

 of his most fascinating books about them. The Duke of Argyll, in his " Reign of 

 Law," commenting upon Darwin's discoveries among the Orchids, observes, ' the 

 complication and ingenuity of these contrivances almost exceed belief. ' Moth- 

 traps and spring guns set upon these grounds,' might be the motto of these 

 Orchids There are baits to tempt the nectar-loving Lepidoptera with rich odours 

 exhaled at night, and lustrous colours to shine by day ; there are channels of 

 approach along which they are surely guided so as to compel them to pass by 

 certain spots ; there are adhesive plasters nicely adjusted to fit their probosces or 

 to catch their brows ; there are hair-triggers carefully set in their necessary path, 

 communicating with explosive shells, which project their pollen-stalks with un- 

 erring aim upon their bodies. There are, in short, an infinitude of adjustments, for 

 an idea of which I must refer my readers to Mr. Darwin's inimitable powers of 

 observation and description." 



But the'Orchidaces present mysteries as well as wonders. Most of the 

 species which comprise the genus " Orchis " exhibit a most curious and, as yet 

 unexplained anomaly. They all possess weU-developed spur-like nectaries, which 

 seem to imply the secretion of nectar, yet in none of them has the smallest bead 

 of nectar ever been found, even under the microscope. They are favounties with 

 insects, especially the Lepidoptera. Dar^viQ gives a list of twenty-three of these 

 beautiful creatures which he had observed visiting various Orchids. Why then 

 do insects visit them so freely ? What is the attraction ? Sprengel, knowing the 

 absolute absence of nectar, caUs these Orchids, " Scheinsaf tblumen, " or Sham- 

 honey flowers. That is, he beUeves that these plants exist by an orgamzed system 



