OPHRYDE^—SERAPIADIN^—OPHRYS 225 



I. Ophrys MUSCIFERA Huds. 

 PI. 54. Fly Orchid 



Tubers two, globose or ovoid, the younger often stalked; roots short, rather thick. 

 Stem erect, 25-40 cm., sometimes over 60 cm.,' slender, round, solid, with whitish 

 or brownish obtuse ribbed basal sheaths, rarely green-tipped. Leaves oblong-Ianceo- 

 late to lanceolate, more or less acute, keeled, folded, bluish green, about 13-nerved 

 with numerous cross-veins, the upper narrow tapering clasping the stem. Flowers 

 2-10, distant, in a long lax spike, small unscented green with purple- or red-brown 

 lip. Bracts erect, lanceolate, folded, with inrolled edges, ± 6-nerved, the lowest 

 exceeding the flowers. Ovary sessile, erect, long, slender, 6-ridged, light green, 

 glabrous. Sepals narrow, lanceolate, obtuse, glabrous, yellow-green, 3-nerved, 

 spreading, with rolled-back edges. Petals shorter, linear, very narrow, velvety in 

 front, purplish or brownish red, the edges rolled back making them thread-like. Lip 

 longer than sepals, 3-lobed, velvety, purplish or reddish brown with a quadrangular 

 bluish iridescent (rarely cream or white) glabrous shield in the middle, and two dark 

 shining eye-like knobs (staminodes) at the base; side-lobes short, narrow, oblong, 

 slightly convex, densely velvety, mid-lobe broadening downwards, bi-lobed or deeply 

 notched, rarely with a short tooth in the middle, lobes obtuse or acute. Lip on the 

 whole nearly flat with slightly reflexed margins, longer than broad. Column shorter 

 than petals with a short blunt beak (often with none), surmounted by the red-celled 

 anther, and with an arched chamber at its base, on the inner surface of the roof and 

 sides of which the stigma is situated. Rostellum with two cup-shaped whitish 

 pouches enclosing the viscid discs. Pollinia bright yellow with transparent yellow 

 elbowed caudicles. Seeds with netted transparent testa, its cells with transverse 

 nearly parallel sometimes forked strias. 



0. muscifera owes its popular name to its resemblance to a fly — Linnaeus declared 

 that only the buzz was wanting. Flies, however, do not have long antennx, of which 

 the thread-like petals are strongly suggestive, resembling those of the insect wliich 

 actually pollinates it. The species is very constant to type, showing little variation. 

 The var. bomhifera Brebisson^ appears to be O. aranifera x muscifera, as suggested 

 by Camus, whilst parviflora Schulze seems only to be a dwarf form with small flowers 

 due to dry ground. The forms apiculata with an intermediate tooth, rotmdata with 

 very short side-lobes, and duhia with very long ones seem to be of small account. 

 The colour-forms ochroleuca with small yellowish white flowers and virescens Rolfe 

 with green flowers and a whitish shield (PI. 55) seem to be accidental sports. The 

 discoverer of the latter took me in 191 9 to the place where he found it, but not a 



' Townsend, F/. Hants. J Brebisson, Fl. Normandie, ed. 3, p. 279. 



