on the Orchis militaris, 33 



Orchis tepiirosantiios. 



This plant is well figured in tlie first and second editions of 

 Gerard,/?. 156, no. 1. p. L'05, no. 2. though under a different name in 

 each, and copied from them into Parkinson, p. 1344, no. 4. These 

 old authors, however, do not mention it as found in England. The 

 earliest information we have of this fact, if we except the allusion 

 to it by Merett, alread}' stated, is recorded in Ray's Catalogtis Plan- 

 taritm, where we learn that it was discovered by Mr. Brown ou 

 " the hills by the river Thames, near Cawsham-Bridge, a mile from 

 Reading, and on several other hills on the other side the water to^ 

 wards Wallingford." This last habitat is omitted in the first edi- 

 tion of the Synopsis. Ray tells us in his Journey on the Conti- 

 nent, that he found it near Geneva, and that he had recently ob- 

 served it in England ; and yet it might be suspected that he never 

 gathered it himself at Caversham (the modern name) in Oxford- 

 shire, since be records the place in Gibson's Camden as being in 

 Berkshire. It is found at present on the rising ground among the 

 bushes to the west of the great chalk-pit facing the river Thames ; 

 but it is an uncertain plant, like many other Orchidece, being found 

 some years very abundantly, and then altogether as sparingly. 

 The two habitats quoted in Flora Britannica, from Ray and Sib- 

 thorp, for this plant, are the same spot. That this is the tephro- 

 santhos of Willdenow there can be no doubt. It takes its trivial 

 name from the ash-colourcd spike; but this would have been 

 equally applicable to Bauhin's plant. Orchis galea et alis cinereis, 

 IJist. ii. p. 755, which seems not to belong to it, though quoted 

 by Ray, but to O. militaris of Eng. Bat. or of Willdenow. 



It might have been supposed that Withering, in his second edi- 

 tion of the Arrangement, intended our present species by his «, 

 since he has uniformly quoted synonyms and figures which refer 



VOL. XII. F to 



