PREFACE 



JO MONOGRAPH OF BRITISH ORCHIDS WITH COLOURED PLATES HAS 



hitherto been pubhshed. In general Floras the imperative need of brevity 

 restricts the characters given to the minimum essential for identification. 

 Orcliids deteriorate so much in desiccation, and the delicate mechanism of the column 

 becomes so distorted or destroyed, that descriptions based on herbarium material 

 are seldom satisfactory, and usually stop short at the floral envelopes, only the 

 briefest mention, if any, being made of the column, which is the most essential part 

 of the flower. The descriptions in the present work, as also the illustrations, were 

 made from living plants, not only British but continental, watched and studied year 

 after year in widely different habitats. 



The coloured plates are life size, from water-colour drawings by my late wife. 

 Of her 245 drawings of European orchids, 184 exliibited in London in 1925 were 

 awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's gold medal, and 229 were shown at the 

 Fifth International Botanical Congress at Cambridge in 1930. 



The work is arranged to indicate the trend of evolution from the more simple and 

 ancient types to comparatively recent and more speciahsed forms. Most works begin 

 with the latter, inverting the natural sequence. The varied and wonderful floral 

 mechanisms and their methods of working are described, and also the extraordinary 

 relations between orchids and their visiting insects. Only a few synonyms likely to 

 be of interest to British readers are given. 



Readers should not be in haste to decide that a plant is not the one described, 

 because it does not agree in every particular. Orchids often vary considerably in 

 minor points such as height, shape of leaves, length of bracts, density of spike, etc., 

 in different localities. It should be remembered that all spotted-leaved orchids are 

 occasionally unspotted, though the reverse does not always hold good. Cases of 

 reversion of the lip to a petal, making three petals, or of the development of both 

 petals into lips, making three lips, occur, though very rarely, as also the development 

 of two additional anthers. Very rarely also there are two lips side by side, sometimes 

 with a third lip just beneath them. 



Thirteen genera are only represented by one species in Britain, three only by two, 

 two by three, one by four, one by six and the largest {Orchis) by twelve: total 47 

 species. Even in Europe the latter has only 42 species. Dr R. S. Rogers, late President 

 of the Royal Society of Australia, is much struck by the absence of large genera in 

 Europe. In the Malay Archipelago Dendrobium and Bulhophjllum have each some 500 

 species, and there are huge numbers of Liparis, MicrostjUs, Oberonias, etc. 



