242 NATIVE BRITISH ORCHIDACE^ 



Lip slightly longer than broad, 3-lobed, mid-lobe longer, obtuse, rarely acute. Spur 

 slender, curved,"slightly swollen at the apex, scarcely as long as the ovary. Pollinia 

 greenish yeUow, caudicles white. Viscidia longer than broad. Stigmas on face of 



side-lobes of column. 



Habitat. Humid calcareous ground. A solitary specimen of this is recorded^as 

 having been found "Between Juniper HiU and Box HUl, Surrey, June 28th, 1855 ".' 

 A second specimen is reported to have occurred in the south of England, "but some 

 error may have arisen through the circumstance of conopsea differing much in scent 

 according to soil or humidity".^ 



Prof. J. W. Heslop Harrisons writes: "In July 191 2, I picked a very large and 

 unusual spike of what I took to be the Fragrant Orchis {Gymnadenia conopsea) at the 

 Black Hall Rocks. However, as it failed to answer to that plant in my floras, I ran 

 it down in several continental books to Gymnadenia odoratissima, a continental plant 

 not previously recorded from Britain. Subsequent search has failed to reveal further 

 specimens. It is worth noting that the habitat was a correct one— on limestone— and 

 one which has almost a monopoly of certain lime-loving plants in our islands". This 

 was on Magnesian limestone in E. Durham.3 



Prof. Heslop Harrison kindly sent me the dried specimen and a dissected flower 

 mounted on a slide. The leaves agreed with G. odoratissima, and were very finely 

 denticulate, but this is also the case with G. conopsea. The bracts, sepals, petals and 

 spur also agreed, and especially the lip, longer than broad, with produced mid-lobe. 

 Continental writers, however, agree that the spike is rather short and slender, and 

 the longest spike I have seen was 8-5 cm. In the Durham specimen it was about 

 16 cm. long, and rather strongly curved, whereas in G. odoratissima it is very straight 

 and tapering. Had I found this specimen abroad I should have put it down as 

 G. conopsea x G. odoratissima. A seed might easily be carried on the foot of a water-bird. 



ORCHIS FALLENS L. 



Tubers ovoid, leaves broadly oblong, bracts yellowish with membranous edges, 

 equalling or exceeding the ovary. Flowers rather large, sulphur-yellow, smelling of 

 elder. Lip broad, shallowly 3-lobed, brighter yellow, not spotted. Spur cylindrical, 

 yellowish white, ascending or horizontal. 



Mrs Tristram (nee Cardew) informed me that two or three specimens suddenly 

 appeared and flowered for several years on a wild bank above her grandmother's 

 tennis-court at Liss, Hants., who was herself somewhat of a botanist, and knew every 

 plant which had been introduced into the grounds. Some cartloads of soil from 



■ W. Pamplin and A. Irvine in Mag. Nat. Hist, ix, 475 (1836). 



J Cjbete Brit, u, 429. 3 Tbe Vasculum, pp. 18, 51 (June, 191 5). 



