jjg NATIVE BRITISH ORCHIDACE^ 



separate viscidia, and given rise to the large genera Orchis and Ophrys, and also the 

 Gymnadeniins. The single viscidium in the above genera may possibly have arisen 

 from the coherence of two viscidia, but is more probably a connecting link between 

 the single rostellum of more primitive tribes and the two viscidia of Orchis, etc. 



HiMANTOGLOSSUM Spretigd, SjsL III, 675 (1826). LOROGLOSSUM Rich., Mem. 

 Mus Paris iv, 54 (1818) (which included Aceras). Included by Linnxus in 

 Satyrium, by Crant2, Robert Brown, etc., in Orchis, and by Lindley, in which 

 he was followed by Reichenbach f., in Aceras. 



I. HiMANTOGLOSSUM HIRCINUM Sprengel 



PI. 33; PI. C, fig. 4 (p. 50). Lizard Orchid 



Tubers ovoid or oblong, undivided; roots short, rather thick. Stem usually robust 

 (sometimes rather slender in English specimens), 20-40 cm. tall (recorded up to 

 90 cm. abroad), solid, cyHndrical, glabrous, smooth, obscurely angled above pale 

 green faintly mottled with purple, leafy. Leaves firm, basal (4-6), 6-12 cm. long, 

 3-5 cm broad, oval- to oblong-lanceolate, rather obtuse or moderately acute, keeled, 

 glabrous, erect or spreading, light green or dark green, often yellowish or fading 

 at time of flowering; upper sessile, tapering, acute, many-nerved, with branching 

 cross-veins. Raceme spike-like, 10-25 cm. long, stout, erect, cylindrical many- 

 flowered usually dense. Flowers greenish with very long ribbon-hke twisted lips, at 

 first coiled up like a watch-spring, finally hanging obliquely downwards, the lower 

 somewhat distant, the upper crowded, becoming less so through lengthenmg of the 

 axis with a strong goat-like smell and somewhat tangled and untidy appearance 

 Bracts linear, narrow, tapering, acute, more or less membranous, often with mrolled 

 edaes pale crreen or wliitish often tinged rose, lowest about 5 cm. long, equalling 

 the flowers with green central nerve and about three others on each side near the 

 edge the upper slightly exceeding the ovary. Ovary shortly stalked, somewhat 

 spindle-shaped, twisted, ± i cm. long, smooth, glabrous, pale green, with three 

 slight longitudinal ridges. Capsule long, rather 3-sided, tapering at base, with marked 

 ridaes. Sepals forming a helmet, cohering at base, free or not at the tip, oval, 

 rounded at apex, concave, 3-4-nerved, whitish green sometimes flushed with violet, 

 paler inside with numerous violet-red lines and spots; upper sepal arched forward, 

 rather boat-shaped. Petals slightly shorter, Imear, very narrow, adhermg to edges 

 of upper sepal for most of their length, spotted, i-nerved. Lip linear, very long, 

 wedge-shaped and broader at base, with green strongly undulate (crimped) edges 

 conthiued on the linear short (± i cm.) narrow acute curly green or reddish side- 

 lobes ; mid-lobe ribbon-like, very long (4-5 cm.) in proportion to its breadth (± 2 mm ), 

 at base trough-like, wlaite spotted red-violet with a dense fur of minute white papillas 



