ON THE CHALK DOWNS 109 



in this inconspicuous plant peculiar virtues for relieving 

 quinsies, and called it by their name. 



Besides these staple plants of the down flora, the most 

 attractive flowers are some of the scarcer orchises. The 

 common early orchis blooms freely with the cowslip in 

 April on many slopes of the down, but neither good spring 

 flower is in any way peculiar to this site or soil. By mid- 

 summer the pyramidal and bee and fragrant and burnt 

 orchises are all to be found not uncommonly on many 



stretches of down ; while the butterfly orchises, and the white 

 and red helleborines, are blooming in the clumps and groves 

 of beeches. The Kentish downs are the chief home of some 

 of the scarcer kinds, such as the man and musk and spider 

 and fly, and the rarer lizard ; but several of these species 

 occur on the chalk hills of other counties, while slopes by the 

 upper Thames are still a haunt of the military orchis, and 

 apparently the only one. The commonest of these orchids 

 are also found frequently on a soil of grey mountain lime- 

 stone, which is closely akin to chalk, and nurtures much the 

 same flora. But the chalk is the great headquarters of all 

 but a very few of our scarcer plants of this tribe. 



The pyramidal orchis, which is the commonest of the 



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