

LIBRARY 

 NEW YORK 

 BOTANICAL 



PREFACE. ^^"^^^^ 



To the botanist few orders of plants stand more in need of 

 illustration from living specimens than Orchids. This is chiefly 

 due to the highly differentiated form either of the perianth or of 

 the essential organs, and, in the latter case to the additional fact 

 that these are usually more or less fleshy in their texture, and 

 that dried specimens of these organs do not recover their shape 

 after soaking or boiling. Hence it is often difficult both to 

 describe them satisfactorily, and for the student to identify 

 specimens from such descriptions. This is especially the case in 

 the tribe Ophrydeae, so largely represented in South Africa, aud 

 it is so in a still greater degree (because the column is usually 

 most highly complicated) in its sub-tribe Coryciete of which three 

 out of its four genera are exclusively confined to South Africa. 

 It is to endeavour to meet this need that this work has been 

 undertaken. An exception has been made in the case of a few 

 species which have been drawn from dried specimens, where 

 there was no hope of obtaining living plants within a reasonable 

 time, and where (in most cases) flowers freshly preserved in 

 spirits or glycerine have been sent to me by kind correspondents. 



To the field-botanists, students, and lovers of nature in South 

 Africa, a class which, it is pleasant to know, is now yearly 

 increasing, I trust the book will be of service, and prove a 

 cc stimulus to fresh investigation and discovery. A country life 

 l~: affords the greatest opportunities for the close observation of 

 c; nature, and more than one farmer has been amongst its friends 



