ORCHIDACEAE. 113 
Var. 2, fucifera. 
Prats MCCCCLXX. 
O. fucifera, Sm. Engl. Fl. Vol. IV. p. 32. G. EB. Smith, Engl: Bot. Supp. No. 2649, 
Lindl. Syn. Brit, Fl. p. 262. 
Lateral petals downy or roughish on the inner surface ; labellum 
undivided, rarely more or less 3-lobed; lateral humps less prominent 
than in var. «. 
On chalk downs and rough banks and borders of fields, in chalky 
or limestone districts: Local. Var. « has oceurred in Kent, Suffolk, 
Cambridge, Northampton, and Oxford. It has also been reported 
from Salop and York; but on doubtful authority. Var. 6 has been 
found in Dorset (Mr. I. C. Mansel), Hants, Sussex, South Kent, and 
abundantly at Queentown Warren, near Hartlip, North Kent. 
England. Perennial. Spring, early Summer. 
A variable plant, usually smaller and more slender than O. apifera 
and QO. arachnites, but sometimes attaining to as great a size. Flowers 
generally fewer, often only 2 or 3, but sometimes 6 or 8. Bracts her- 
aceous, the lower ones usually exceeding the ovary. Calyx segments 
pale 4 yellowisli- ereen on the inside, not rose-coloured or pink as im the 
two preceding, Tather shorter, rarely above inch long; labellum gene- 
rally a little longer than the sepals, dull purple, with a somenhat 
glassy slate- coloured horseshoeshaped blotch giving off from the con- 
vex part of the horseshoe two stripes running - towards the apex of the 
labellum, which are sometimes free, and sometimes united; the velvety 
part of the labellum soon changes into pale livid brown, inclining to 
yellow at the margins. 
The British specimens I have seen were mostly destitute of any 
appendage or tooth in the notch of the terminal lobe, but I have seen 
the tooth in a few of the plants colleeted at Queentown Warren. 
Vars. «and 6 can scarcely be separated; the roughness or downiness 
of the petals is really the only character which disting uishes each, for 
the lobing of the labellum is variable in both forms. ‘There is no 
difference in the form of the petals as stated by Sir J. E. Smith, nor 
in the time of flowering. I have collected each of the two forms in 
flower from April up to y the beginning of June, according to the earli- 
ness or lateness of the season and the warmth of the situ: ation. 
Early Spider Orchis. 
French, Ophiys araignée. German, Spinnendhnliche Prauenthrane, 
Orchid culture in England is almost a passion with some hortieulturists, and 
brings to mind the Tulipomania of the seventeenth century, new and rare specimens 
being only attainable at a great price. In the Catalogue of the Cambridge Botanic 
Gardens for 1815, there occur the names of but a score or two varieties; now entire 
VOL. IX. Q 
