608 



common yarrow or milfoil — doubtless so depauperated through its in- 

 sidious attachment. Near Alton, Hants, June 29, 1621 ; Goodyer in 

 Gerarde em., p. 228. By the earlier English botanists this species 

 was apt to be confounded with a leafless orchidaceous plant — the Li- 

 modorum abortivum of Swartz (Orchis abortiva, L.), not hitherto 

 detected in England, but perhaps from its geographical range in the 

 north of France and Belgium, no improbable addition at some future 

 time to the British Flora. Goodyer's description, however, leaves no 

 room to doubt that our Orobanche caerulea was the plant found by 

 him near Alton, and not the Limodorum. In particular he notices the 

 want of a tuberous enlargement at the base of the under-ground por- 

 tion of the caudex, in which this differs from all our remaining British 

 species. His words are, — " The lower part of the stalk within the 

 ground is not round like Orobanche (O. rapum), but slender or long, 

 and of a yellowish white colour, with many small brittle roots growing 

 underneath confusedly, wrapped or folded together like those of the 

 common Nidus-avis {Neottia Nidus-avis).'''' He goes on to say, — 

 " The whole plant as it appeareth above ground, both stalkes, leaves, 

 and floures, is of a^iolet or deepe purple colour. This I found in 

 the corner of a field called Marborne, neere Habridge in Haliborn, a 

 mile from a towne called Alton in Hampshire, being the land of one 

 William Balden. In this place also groweth wilde the thistle called 

 Corona fratrum" {Carduus eriophorus). The freshly opened flowers 

 are of a beautiful deep amethyst blue, but quickly become dingy, and 

 the stem has somewhat of a metallic lustre, with an appearance like 

 that of partially rusted iron which has been lightly rubbed over in 

 places with blacklead. I do not see how our plant can be the O. 

 caerulea of Villars, in which that author expressly tells us the bracts 

 are solitary,* unless perhaps he overlooked the two lateral and inner 

 ones, which are very narrow, and much smaller than the middle and 

 outer bract. But his rather meager description is not in other re- 

 spects applicable to our English O. caerulea, for although the specific 

 character of "caule simplici basi bulbosa," may be construed to signify 

 the simple enlargement of the base of the stem, as it occurs with us, 

 the latter cannot be said to be " garnie d'un oignon spherique," since, 

 as we have shown above, the absence of a decidedly tuberous ex- 

 tremity to the caudex is a character of our plant, not found, so far as 

 I know, in other British species.f I may here add, that the flower- 



* Hist, des Planles de Dauph. ii. p. 406. 



f In very many of the specimens I have examined the caudex is enlarged, not at 

 the extremity, but a little above it, and wholly or partly below the surface, into a fusi- 

 form shape. 



