OPHRYDE^—SERAPIADINyE—OPHRYS 



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long. Spur stout, about 9 tnm. long, compressed laterally. Pollinia very small, 

 split almost to base, yellowish brown, perhaps abortive, as they left no pollen-packets 

 on the sticky stigma, which is bordered by a coloured line. Flowers in June. 



The hybrid retains the very dwarf habit, narrow leaves, small lax few-flowered 

 spike and thick spur of 0. eborensis, but has acquired the more deeply lobed pale- 

 coloured lip with red-violet markings of O. macukta. It is curious that the influence 

 of the latter, wliich is a much taller plant in the same valley, has not modified the 

 dwarf habit or broadened the leaves. ' 



Genus XXI OPHRYS Swartz 



Column with stigma on inner surface of basal chamber, anther in one piece with 

 column and each viscidium in a separate pouch. 



Herbs with ovoid tubers, mostly basal leaves, 4-7 rather distant flowers with 

 petaloid or herbaceous sepals, densely velvety usually dark-coloured spurless lip, 

 and two shining eye-like staminodes (except in Pseud-ophrys). 



EasHy recognised by the spurless velvety lip, resembling an insect (hence the names 

 Fly Orchid, Bee Orcliid, etc.), the separate pouch for each viscid disc, and the 

 resemblance of the column, in profile, to the head and neck of a bird, with two eyes 

 and (usually) a beak. There are two sections : 



I. Eu-ophrys Godf. Lip without basal cavity, with two shining eye-hke stami- 

 nodes at the base, and geometrical often metallic markings. Pollinia removed by 

 Hymenoptera on the head. AH the British species belong to this section. 



II. Pseud-ophrys Godf. Lip with basal cavity hispid inside, without eye-hke 

 staminodes, with two leaden bluish or purplish loops of different colour from the 

 rest of the hp. Pollinia carried off by Hymenoptera on the tip of the abdomen.^ Non- 

 British. In Eu-ophrys the whole lip mimics an insect sucking honey in the centre of 

 the flower. In Pseud-ophrys only the difl?"erently coloured central portion represents 

 an insect resting upside down, in a reversed position. The visiting male insect places 

 himself in the same position, and thus withdraws the polHnia on the end of the 

 abdomen. 



Ophrys L., Gen.pl. ed. i, p. 272; ed. 5, p. 406 (1754). 



The genus Ophrys L. contained no less than ten different genera, Neottia 

 CoRALLORHiZA, Spiranthes, Listera, Liparis, Malaxis, h'erminium' 

 Cham^orchis, Aceras and Ophrys. The species Ophrys insectifera 

 corresponds with the modern genus Ophrys. 



Ophrys Swartz, Act. holm. p. 22 (1800); Benth. and Hooker, Gen.pl. m, 621. 



' PI. H, fig. 3 shows two plants from a tuft gathered June 26th, 1929, by Mr St Quintin and Dr 

 Stephenson in the same locahty, which appeared to them to be hybrids between the Mastery Orchis 

 and O. maculata, which grew a few yards away. j r£_ pp ,^_g CiozS) 



