BRITISH AND OTHER HARDY ORCHIDS. 529 
is worth growing, some of them are not easily accommodated 
in the garden, and others are difficult to procure. We 
have selected a few of the best. 
Culture-—The most successful cultivator of these plants 
in England was the Comte de Paris, who, a few years ago, 
exhibited many beautiful specimens at the London plant 
exhibitions. One of these is represented in the Plate of 
Ophrys tenthredinifera. If planted in pots they should be 
plunged in ashes or cocoa-nut fibre during the growing 
season. Good fibrous loam, with sharp sand and a little 
pounded chalk, should be used. In this the tubers must 
be buried rin. below the surface, and the soil pressed 
moderately firmly about them; 6in. pots are the most con- 
venient, and into each about five plants should be placed. 
They may also be grown in a fissure of the rockery. 
0. apifera——The Bee Orchis, common in this country 
in chalk or limestone districts. We have seen thousands 
of it in small areas about Dorking, in flower in June. 
The stems are about 1ft. high, and bear from three to 
six flowers, in which the lip is the most conspicuous part, 
being ovate, convex, velvety brown-purple, spotted with 
orange yellow. 
QO. aranifera (the Spider Orchis), with a broad dull-brown 
lip, spotted with yellow, and Q. muscifera (the Fly Orchis), 
with a three-lobed, almost flat lip, coloured bright red 
brown, with a blue patch and sometimes a yellow edge, 
are also British kinds which differ from the Bee Orchis 
only in the characters here mentioned. 
QO. insectiferan—A continental plant which Linnzus took 
as the type of all the Ophrys. It has a stem 8in. high, 
the rosette of leaves measuring 5in. across. There are 
about six flowers on each spike, and they are Iin. across; 
2M 
