300 PLANTS OF ENFIELD CHASE. [OctoheV, 



hypothesis would not be altogether inadmissible. But this is not 

 the case. The shrubberyj which possesses nothing unusual about 

 it, was probably planted by Messrs. Loddiges, of Hackney ; or the 

 young plants were supplied from some of the numerous nurseries 

 near London. 



Another interesting problem about this Epipactis — for such it 

 is, either E. purpurata or E. latifolia or E. merfia— remaining to 

 be solved, is its parasitical habit. Mr. Wollaston asserts (see 'Phy- 

 tologist,' N.s. vol. vi., Feb. 1862, p. 63), that it grows only on the 

 roots of Beech and Hazel. At Chase Cottage, Enfield, it certainly 

 is not confined to these roots, and here it does not appear to be 

 parasitical, or, if it be, it has a general attachment to all sylvan 

 beauties ; it does not confine its favours to two trees. Parasites 

 usually fix on individuals of one species, unlike the parasitic species 

 of the human race, who prey on all mankind indificrently ; hence 

 it may be inferred that this is no parasite. The next question 

 to be answered will be, is this Epipactis E. latifolia or E. pur- 

 purata ? E. latifolia has a stouter, taller, straighter stem, and 

 more numerous, broader, shorter, and thicker leaves than the 

 Chase Cottage plant has. The inflorescence is also much laxer 

 in the present than it is in the other species, E. latifolia is 

 not an uncommon species, E. purpurata is. 



Whatever it be, whether one or other of the two forms or 

 species named above, or one distinct from both, it is part of the 

 vegetation of the ancient forest. That it should have remained 

 dormant for so long a period and again re-appeared, is one of 

 the wonders of vegetation, but it is not quite singidar. (See ' Phy- 

 tologist,^ N.s. vol. ii., May, 1857, p. 114, for an analogous case.) 



Mr. Masters's remarks, or rather Mr. Oxendon's, are to the 

 following purport : — A field that had once been pasture, and sub- 

 sequently in tillage for a space of forty years, when again " it 

 was laid down for grass, and the third year after it was thus laid 

 down, there appeared in it at least a hundred Bee Orchises ; 

 more, in fact, than existed in a circuit of five miles round.^' 



Respecting the present subject, the Enfield Epipactis, — as it 

 may be called till we get an approved name for it, guaranteed by 

 a respectable sponsor, — the most probable hypothesis is that it is 

 as original as the oldest plants of the forest ; and that, like the 

 Bee Orchis near Broome Park, Kent, it re-appeared after being 

 in abeyance for nearly forty years. 



