2^6 NATIVE BRITISH ORCHIDACE^ 



trace could be seen. A curious form near Orpington, Kent, with white or very pale 

 crreen bracts, and pure white sepals has been recorded. ' 



^ Teratological forms occasionally occur. One with both petals transformed mto 

 lips is relatively not very rare, according to Camus {Icon. p. 301).^ A specimen found 

 near Canterbury had no petals and two additional anthers,3 each with poUima, doubt- 

 less developed from two ancestral anthers of the inner whorl, fertile in the Diandr^, 

 suppressed in the normal flower of all the Monandry. Tliis triandrous condition not 

 infrequently occurs in Ophrys, usually without suppression of the petals. In a plant 

 found near Miinster each flower had five lips, and this did not change under cultiva- 

 tion Another, found in Germany, had three sepals, three petals (all alike) and three 

 columns. The lip had reverted to the primitive petal from which it was evolved 



Habitat. Open woods and clearings, sometimes in shade, banks, field-borders, 

 chalk downs, sometimes in marshy ground, as in Anglesey! and Ireland where it 

 also (rarely) occurs in bogs (Qb. Hibern. p. 346), turbaries (very rarely) (Camus, 

 Icon. p. 301). Flowers May to July. ^ ,. j ta . 



Distribution. Rather rare, sometimes locally abundant. From Kent and Dorset 

 to Durham and Westmorland. Wales. Denbigh (Dallman, J.B. Supp. p. 45 (i9"))- 

 Anglesey! Scotland. Perth (E. Pickard, B.E.C. p. 399 (i9^0)- D^ Druce says a 

 friend of his found leaves and a tuber in W. Ross, which turned out to be 0. musctfera. 

 E Perth {B.E.C. p. 399 (1921)). In Ireland only in the centre, where it is rare. Its 

 great rarity in Scotland is remarkable, as in Scandinavia it extends to 67° N. latitude, 

 i e just within the Arctic circle. Scandinavia and Central Russia (further north m the 

 Onega region, Camus) to Northern Spain, N. Italy, N. Balkan pemnsula, N. Greece. 

 In the Mediterranean region it is only found in the mountains, and appears not to 

 extend to N. Africa. 



Ophrys muscifera Huds., Fl. anglica, ed. i, p. 340 (1762)- O. insectifera 



« MYODES L., Sp. pi. p. 948 (1753)- O. MYODES Jacquin (1781), who was the 



first to use myodes as a specific name, though Linnceus had used it in a varietal 



sense. As the latter did not recognise it as a species, and as muscifera has passed 



into universal botanical language, it is not in the interests of science to replace it 



by a name less generally known, and not adopted by the greatest modern mono- 



graphists Camus and Schlechter, or by Ascherson and Graebner or Rouy. 



Fertilisation. As described under Ophrys. H. Miiller stated4 that in sunny weather 



drops of nectar are secreted on the lip as in Neottia nidus-avis, and that he once saw a 



fly {Sarcophagd) licking up these drops, but it did not remove the poUmia This was 



perhaps honey-dew, for Darwin could never find any trace of nectar, nor did he ever 



see any insects approach the flowers, often as he watched them.S He knew that 



\ So^ur'c^n iecoS; a Kentish specimen with three Ups, Native Orchids of J,rltaln (:9^5> 



3 O.R. p. loi (1920). 4 Nature, p. 22 (1878). 5 YeU. Orch. ed. 2, p. 47- 



