268 LIZARD ORCHIS. [September, 



LIZAKD OECHIS. 



{To the Editor of the ' Phytologist.'') 



Sir, — I notice in your last iorpression (July, p. 224) an inquiry 

 as to the Lizard Orchis (by the bye it is fortunate the English name 

 was given, else your readers might have been much puzzled to 

 know what plant was meant !), and as, through the kindness of G. 

 C. Oxenden, Esq., I have been furnished with a specimen of that 

 singular plant, accompanied with notes concerning it and some 

 of its congeners, I am in a position to reply to your correspon- 

 dent, and to give you some extracts from Mr, Oxenden^s letters, 

 which may be of use or of interest to you. 



" Orchis hircina is certainly extrenndy rare, but where he is 

 found, there he shows abundantly. I have found seven this 

 June (1859). One is growing just under my very window, per- 

 haps the finest Lizard Orchis in England. It is about twenty- 

 five inches in height, with an immensely strong stem, and about 

 forty flowers on it. There are also five other plants within a 

 hundred yards, but the difficulty of preserving them is excessive, 

 inasmuch as slugs and snails have a stronger afiinity for them 

 than for any other green thing, and also because in the spring the 

 exuviae of the buds of trees and plants carried by the wind lodge 

 in the foot -stalks of the leaves of 0. hircina as it were in a cup, 

 decay there^ rot a portion of the stem, and finally destroy it." 



Mr. Oxenden alludes, in terms which will be readily appreciated 

 by " Phil-Orchis," to the systematic devastation of the Kentish 

 downs of the rarer Orchids, by a Gipsy woman who digs them up 

 and carries them off" to Guildford and Croydon for sale. 



Of the specific difference between Epipactis latifolia and the 

 form called purpurata, Mr. Oxenden entertains no doubt ; both 

 plants are tolerably abundant in his neighbourhood, and from 

 the means of comparison thus afforded, he is enabled to say that 

 " the enormous contrast in the shape of the leaf, colour of the 

 leaf, fiowcr, liabit of growth, suffice to separa,te them altogether." 

 " What botanist," he says, " ever yet knew E. latifolia to throw 

 up ten or a dozen flowering stems from the same root, each stem 

 very close to the rest like ears of corn ? — but every one of these 

 contingencies occurs with E. purpurataP 



I do not know precisely the spot where the Lizard grows, but 

 it is on the chalk downs of that part of the county. Last 



