992 



rigorously and simultaneously compared with as multitudinous a 

 supply of examples of P. chlorantha, from the thickly wooded 

 slopes of the chalk range called Hawkley Hangers, a few miles from 

 this village, as also from other localities where the greater butterfly 

 orchis abounds, which it does far more generally and plentifully in 

 this county than the smaller kind. I have thus assured myself that 

 the differences detailed below were not merely accidental or individual 

 peculiarities, but were at least common to all the plants of these spe- 

 cies in the district within which the examples submitted to examina- 

 tion were collected, if they may not hold good in specimens from 

 parts of the country more remote, which I must leave to other and 

 abler observers than myself to ascertain. 



Besides the leading or most prominent character which serves to 

 distinguish our two Platantherae, the parallelism and divergence of 

 the cells of the anther, there are several subordinate ones apparently 

 no less constant, but which, from having been overlooked or slightly 

 alluded to, I now proceed to exhibit, in conjunction with the longer 

 recognized and more obvious marks of distinction, in the subjoined 

 tabular view. 



Platanihera chlorantha. Platanthera bifolia. 



Anther much broader than long, Anther about as broad as long, 

 very concave anteriorly, the con- or even narrower, connective (co- 

 nective (column) with a prominent lumn) plane, or by the approxima- 



less profusion, literally filling the woods at the two last named places, and making a 

 glorious appearance in July and August. Another plant more frequent, I think, in 

 the midland counties than in those along the south coast — Convallaria multiflora — 

 I have now ascertained to be dispersed over nearly every part of Hampshire (the 

 Isle of Wioht excepted), abounding in most of the central, northern and south-eastern 

 parts, and at least as far westward as Harewood Forest, near Andover, where it is 

 common in very many parts of that sequestered woodland tract. I do not find men- 

 tion made by any author of the strong smell emitted by the Soloman's seal, which re- 

 sides in the root, stem and fleshy bases of the leaves, and exactly resembles the odour 

 of Iris fcetidissiraa, but is even more powerful than in that plant. The bruised leaves 

 themselves exhale no peculiar smell. Does C. Polygonatum, which I cannot succeed 

 in rediscovering this season in Mr. Woods' old station of Chawton Park, possess the 

 same smell ? If it does not, the knowledge of the above fact may aid in detecting 

 the latter when out of bloom, at which time its great similarity to C. multiflora, the 

 stem of which, in the larger plants especially, is often furrowed and subangular, and 

 in the smaller commonly compressed and almost two-edged, may occasion it to be 

 overlooked for that more abundant and less local species. 



