Pirate XLITI. 
OPHRYS mszctirera, Linn. 
Natural Order OrcHIDACEA. 
Gen. Cuar.—Lip without a spur. Pollen-masses having 2 separate 
glands enclosed in 2 apparently distinct pouches. Ovary not twisted. 
Spec. Cuar.—Sepals spreading. Lip entire or lobed. Oolunm pro- 
longed beyond the anther-cells into a beak of variable length. 
Ophrys isectifera, Linn. Sp. Plant. ii. 1343 (1765). 
Hasirat.—Bunks in western and eastern bays, from shore-level to 
about 1000 feet. December to March. 
Remarxs.—I have devoted this Plate and the two following to draw- 
ings illustrative of a few of the forms which Linneus considered as 
varieties sprung from one original type, but which have since his time 
been always arranged as a greater or less number of species. Of these 
the principal with which the present inquiry has to do are Ophrys 
aranifera, Huds. (FI. Angl. ed. 2 (1778), p. 391), the Spider Ophrys ; 
O. arachnites, Reichard (Fl. Mosnofrancof. ii. 89); O. scolopax, Cav. 
(Ie. ii. p. 46, t. 161), and O. apifera, Huds., the Bee Ophrys. Linneus 
included in this manner, under the same name, plants which, as he 
said, ‘seem at the first glance perfectly distinct; but,’ he continues, 
**one who compares them with their congeners, and has before him all 
the varieties at the same moment, will easily perceive them to be sprung 
from one stock, and will find no means by which he may distinguish 
them, however constant they (the varieties) may be” (Linn. Sp. Plant. 
ii. 1344). I have never had any opportunity of studying the degree of 
variation to which Ophrys muscifera, Huds., may be subject, and I wish 
it clearly to be understood that my present object is confined to an 
attempt to show something of the intermediate forms between O. arani- 
fera, Huds., and O. apifera, Huds., without attempting any considera- 
tion of adjacent varieties. It is scarcely necessary to remark that in 
three plates it is impossible to do more than supply a few examples of 
the manner of variation, and I have therefore selected such forms as 
have not previously been figured, soas to add to the information already 
supplied on this subject by Reichenbach, in his ‘Icones Flore Ger- 
manice,’ vols. xiii. xiv., by the ‘ Botanical Magazine’ and ‘ Register,’ and 
by Sowerby’s ‘ English Botany.’ There are three organs in the flower 
~ of O. insectifera, Linn., on which specific characters have chiefly been 
founded by modern botanists: 1, the petals, 2, the lip; 3, the anther. 
In the petals the glabrous and flat form changes till it becomes pubes- 
cent and recurved, and the linear-oblong shape is modified into ovate 
