or cordate. The lip, evenin the forms which flower earliest and which 
best represent O. aranifera, Huds., is very variable, being either bossed 
or not, lobed or entire ; the process may also be found in every stage of 
growth, advancing with the season (for this see Remarks on Plate 
XLIV.), from the tooth-like point of the January plant to the triden- 
tate or entire lobe of those flowering in May. The markings also 
undergo a gradual modification, so that the lines resembling the Greek 
letter x, which are found in all the plants figured in this Plate, vary by . 
the approximation of the parallel limbs until the complex figuring of 
O. apifera, Huds., is obtained. At one time I thought that O. apifera, 
Huds., might be separated from its congeners by the curvature of the 
terminal lobe of the lip, which is generally so recurved that the process 
is hidden beneath ; but I found specimens in which this character was 
scarcely evident, and I discovered in Reichenbach’s figures (Ic. Fl. 
Germ. xiii. 96) a plant which he calls O. apifera, var. Trollii, in which 
the entire lip is porrect or very slightly curved, as in O. scolopax, Cay. 
The anther also is a variable feature, and cannot be depended on for 
characters to separate O. apifera, Huds., from the forms nearest to it. 
It is true that the column is generally prolonged into a beak, but this is 
very inconstant; and it is also true that the pollen-masses are spon- 
taneously released from the cells, but this takes place also at times in 
O. scolopax, Cav. (Cont. to Fl. of Mentone, i.19). (Continued in 
“ Remarks” on the two following Plates.) 
Expnanation OF Pirate XLIII.—Fig. A 1, the entire lip of form 
A. Fig. A 2, anther and stigmatic chamber of the same. Fig. A 3, 
petal of thesame. Fig. B 1, lobed lip of form B. Fig. D 1, incurved 
lip of form D. All the figtres are magnified. 
