224 ORCHIDE.E— ORCHID TRIBE 



four shallow marginal lobes, and a terminal flat heart-shaped appendage, 

 which is always straight ; sepals colonred ; petals angular, downy. This is 

 a rare plant of the chalky downs in Kent and Surrey. The sepals are 

 pinkish, a little tinged with purple, and with a green vein down the middle ; 

 the velvet lip is dark purple, variegated with yellow or green, and the 

 appendage of light green. The pollinia are said to differ from those of the 

 Bee Orchis in having stilTer footstalks and not falling over on the stigma. 

 It appears to be only a sub-species of 0. apifem. 



3. Spider Orchis {0. aranifera). — Lip swollen, scarcely 3-lobed ; middle 

 lobe without an appendage, or with a minute point or gland in the notch ; 

 petals narrow. In one form, the lip is lobed at the margin ; and the petals 

 are smooth. In the other, sometimes termed 0. fucifera, the lip has no lobes, 

 but a spreading wavy margin, and the petals are downy. This Orchis is not 

 infrequent on chalky pastures from Kent to Dorset, and northward to 

 Northampton and Suffolk. Its sepals are green, and its lip of a deep brown 

 hue and hairy, having greenish, or more often dull yellow, lines, frequently 

 resembling the Greek letter 11. It is a low-growing Orchis, rarely half a 

 foot high, the flowers, which are few in number — often not more than three 

 on a plant — reminding one of spiders. The flowers appear in April, May, 

 and June. 



4. Fly Orchis {0. musdfem). — Lip oblong, 3-cleft, with a broad pale 

 spot in the centre ; middle lobe long and 2-cleft ; petals thread-like ; tubers 

 eo-g-shaped. This common and pretty Orchis grows on downs and copses on 

 chalk and limestone from Durham and Westmoreland south as far as Kent 

 and Somerset; also in Mid-Ireland and North Kilkenny. Its flowers are 

 about the size of the common house-fly, though often larger, and its resem- 

 blance to that insect is very striking. The green sepals are like wings, and 

 the lateral petals are very like the antennte of insects ; while the brownish- 

 purple lip, with a pale blue, somewhat square spot in its centre, resembles 

 the body of the fly. The little flowers, about nine or ten in number, in 

 luxuriant specimens, are scattered over the upper half of a slender stem, 

 about a foot high, and look as if the insects were pausing there to rest on 

 the stalk. Parkinson says of this plant : — " The neather parte of the flie is 

 black, with a list of ashe colour crossing the backe, with a show of legges, 

 hano'ino' at it ; the naturall flie seemeth so to be in love with it, that you 

 shall seldome come in the heate of the dale but you shall find one sitting 

 close thereon." The author of these pages, however, who has been from 

 childhood much accustomed to watch this flower, has not observed this, 

 thouo-h the bees certainly seem attracted by the Bee Orchis. 



[It has been conclusively shown since Miss Pratt wrote that flies do visit 

 these flowers and fertilize them by pollinia brought from a flower previously 

 visited. It is not probable that the fly is attracted by the superficial resem- 

 blance to one of its own class, but by the carrion colour, and by the beads of 

 moisture which ooze from the surface of the lip. The dry and shining 

 " eyes " of the floral counterfeit also resemble globules of liquid, and the fly 

 licks them in that belief. In so doing, its head comes against the pollen 

 gland, and the pollinia are detached wherewith to fertilize the next flowers 

 visited.— Ed.] 



