OPHRYDEjE^SERAPIADIN^— AN AC AMPTIS 155 



Genus XVII ANACAMPTIS Rich. 



Stigmas two, lateral, on inner face of side-wings of column, as in Gymnadenia. 

 Rostellum with a single pouch (as in Orchis), enclosing a transverse strap-shaped 

 viscidium to which both poUinia are attached. 



Herbs with globose tubers, conical spike of small long-spurred flowers, deeply 

 3-lobed lip with two converging guide-plates at base, and a viscid gland which curls 

 round and cements itself to the proboscis of the insect withdrawing it. There are 

 two species, both European. 



Anacamptis Rich., Mem. Mus. Paris, iv, 47 (1818). Orchidis species L., Sp. 

 pi. p. 940 (1753). AcERAs sect. Anacamptis Rchb. f., Icones, xm, 6 (185 1). 

 Orchis sect. Anacamptis Bentham and Hooker, Gen. in, 620 (1883). 



Though sometimes placed under Orchis, it appears to be a Gymnadenia, which in 

 the course of further evolution has acquired the undivided tubers and pouch of the 

 rostellum of Orchis. Reichenbach says that the tubers are sometimes almost lobed 

 at the apex, and it is just as credible that Gymnadenia could develop a pouch as that 

 the pouch of Orchis could have been evolved from a rostellum without one. The two 

 linear viscid glands of Gymnadenia joined by their broader ends would give the unusual 

 viscidium of Anacamptis with its free curling tips, which the circular discs of Orchis 

 if cohering would not do. The flower and spur are extraordinarily like those of Gymna- 

 denia conopsea, and the very small circular spur-entrance is as different as possible from 

 the wide spur-mouth of Orchis, with the compound single stigma on the roof or 

 back of the spur itself, while the two separate stigmas on side-wings of the column 

 are the counterpart of those in Gymnadenia. 



Anacamptis fully deserves generic rank, and has reached a very high degree of 

 evolution and adaptation to the structure of a particular class of insects. The strap- 

 shaped viscid gland, exactly encircling the slender proboscis of Lepidoptera, ingeni- 

 ously solves the difficult problem of attaching the poUinia firmly and always in the 

 same position to a very mobile thread-like organ. Vide also first paragraph, p. 151. 



I. Anacamptis pyramidalis Rich. 



PI. 32 (p. 156); PL F, fig. 6 (p. 123); PL K, fig. 4 (p. 220). Pyramidal Orchid 



Tubers two, globose or oblong; roots few, short. Stem erect (20-50 cm.), soHd, 

 often somewhat sinuous, slightly angled above, green, glabrous, often slender, with 

 2-3 brown truncate or tapering leafless sheaths at base. Leaves linear-lanceolate, 

 acute, narrow (lo-i 5 cm.), tapering gradually, keeled, glabrous, green, with numerous 

 parallel nerves and short cross-veins; the basal few, sometimes withered at time of 



