32 Mr. J. E. BiCHENo's Observations 



the present day in the neighbourhood of Streatley and Pangbourn, 

 answering exact!}' to the situation which Brown describes; and 

 the latter is said to grow there, and at Caversham in the neigh- 

 bourhood, on the authority of the same Mr. Brown, in Ray's 

 Catalogus I'kintarum. 



Vaiilant has given the figure of a flower, t. 31. f. 21. which he 

 regards as only a variety offusca, and says he gathered it on the 

 same spot with O.tephi-osanthos; but we are inclined to believe it 

 belongs to this species. Rays Orchis avthropophora altera. Hist. 

 Tlant. 1218, seems to answer to it. From the reports we have 

 received of the Harefield O. militaris, mentioned by Blackstone 

 as growing with the fusca, we suspect it to belong to this species 

 rather than to the following. Haller's t. 28. is somewhat doubtful. 



AVilldenow's specific character, and consequently that of the 

 Hortus Kewensis, does not accord with the English plant; for the 

 middle segment cannot be called bilobed, nor are the bracteas, 

 upon which the editor of Linnaeus places his chief dependence, ob- 

 solete. The reference to Vaiilant also leads me to suspect it, 

 t. xxxi. /. 24., as well asy. 22. and 23., being 0. varicgata. The 

 bracteas, however, vary so much in shape in the dried specimens 

 of all the three plants, from the circumstance of the point being 

 caducous, that we ought not, perhaps, to rely too much on the 

 character drawn from this appendage. Should Willdenow's spe- 

 cies be found to be distinct, it will be necessary to give our plant 

 a new trivial name ; but we leave this to be ascertained by those 

 who have foreign specimens at hand, and who can refer to the 

 figures which he has quoted. 



The chief character of our plant is the regular linear incurved 

 segments of the lip, which are broader than in tephrosanthos, and not 

 notched and ragged as in fiisca, but much narrower. The flowers 

 grow in a dense spike, which old Gerard describes as ash-coloured. 



Orchis 



