148 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



The generic name Ophrys is simply the Greek word for 

 eyebrow, while apifera signifies bee-bearing-. It is not at 

 first sight very evident why our beautiful plant should be 

 branded by botanists as the bee-bearing eyebrow ; but we 

 find on turning to Pliny, a great authority on natural 

 history, that the plant was in his time employed by 

 ladies to darken their eyebrows. He tells us that 

 " Lysimachia gives a fair and golden tint to the 

 hair, and hypericon, likewise ophrys, makes it black/' 

 From the description which he gives of the plant it is 

 more probable that he had in his mind an allied 

 species, the tway-blade, a very common plant of 

 our woods and moist pastures. The second name 

 was bestowed on the plant by Hudson, a botanist 

 of some repute. The plant was in the catalogue of 

 Linnaeus given as the 0. insectifera or insect-bearing, but as 

 we have other insect forms, as, for example, the butterfly 

 orchis, the more definite and individualised name is clearly 

 an advantage. 



