1864] Discovery of Neotinea intacta. 171 



received one of these specimens, and noticed its resem- 

 blance to Reichenbach's figure of Tinea (or Neotinea) 

 intacta, a plant of Southern Europe and Northern Africa. 

 But the identification was not to be fixed in a day. Indeed 

 it was thought by at least one botanist to whom the speci- 

 men was shown that it might belong to Habenaria albida; 

 so that even his hope of adding a new species to the Flora 

 had been considerably damped, when in June, after talking 

 over the matter with his friend Dr. Moore, and coming to 

 no conclusion, he left Dublin to spend the summer botan- 

 izing at Foxford, a village on the river Moy, the boundary 

 between Districts 8 and 9 of the intended " Cybele Hiber- 

 nica." 



Dr. Moore, however, continued to look into the question 

 of the orchid, and after careful research concluded that it 

 could be none other than Neotinea intacta. On June I5th, 

 while still in " some little doubt about the identical 

 species," Dr. Moore wrote a letter to " congratulate Miss 

 More on adding a new plant to the Irish Flora": and about 

 the same time he forwarded one of her specimens to Dr. 

 Reichenbach, by whom its identification as " indeed Neo- 

 tinea intacta" was confirmed. The addition of this species 

 to the British Flora was announced by Dr. Moore at the 

 next meeting of the Royal Irish Academy, on the ayth of 

 June. 



Mr. More's subsequent paper on this plant and its pro- 

 bable geographical affinities was appropriately communi- 

 cated to the Botanical Society of Edinburgh, among whose 

 *' Transactions " (March gth, 1865) it may be considered a 

 kind of supplement to his earlier essay on the " Flora of 

 Castle Taylor," read to the same Society just ten years 

 previously. Two papers on the same discovery had already 

 appeared in the "Journal of Botany," from the respective 

 pens of Dr. Moore (August, 1864) and Dr. Reichenbach 

 (January, 1865) the latter accompanied by a coloured 

 plate, representing (as Dr. Moore calls it) " this pretty 

 little plant " though in the correspondence of its finders 

 it was mentioned as " the very ugly orchis "; and Professor 

 Babington, in acknowledging a specimen for his herbarium, 

 said he " must allow that it had not much beauty of form." 



