528 ORCHIDS. 
long hair-like fringe. This is one of the prettiest of hardy 
Orchids. It should be grown in wet peat and sphagnum. 
H. blepharoglottis is from the same country as the 
above, and differs from it chiefly in having white flowers. 
It is a decidedly pretty plant when well grown. 
H. fimbriatan—The Purple-Fringed Orchis of North 
America. It has a stem 2ft. high, bearing a loose head of 
purplish flowers, each over tin. broad, with a large fan- 
shaped lip deeply fringed about the margin. When happily 
treated this species produces, in June, spikes of from 
thirty to fifty flowers, which last for about three weeks. 
Ophrys. 
There are about thirty kinds of Ophrys described, three 
of them being natives of Britain, and familiarly known as 
the Bee, the Spider, and the Fly Orchis. They all closely 
resemble each other in the characters of their tubers, 
leaves, and flower-stem, and in the form of their flowers, 
the only marked difference being in the shape and colour 
of the segments and lip. The tubers are ovoid; the leaves 
are green, oblong, acute, and arranged in a rosette about 
6in. across. The flower-spike varies in height from 6in. 
to 18in., and it bears from three to six flowers; these are 
about rin. across, and the only conspicuous part is the lip, 
which is usually convex, velvety, and beautifully coloured. 
The resemblance of these flowers to various insects is due 
to the arrangement of the colours of the lip, as well as 
its form. The colours vary considerably in the different 
individuals of the same kind, a character which led Linnzus 
to believe that all the Ophrys were probably forms of one 
very variable species. 
Whilst every one of the thirty admitted species of Ophrys’ 
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