THE FLORA. 73 



stood to be entirely confined to this neighbourhood. 



Mingling with these two lovely wild-flowers there may be 

 found, in autumn, plenty of the purple gentian, Gentiana 

 campestris, or perhaps Amarella ; still, more probably, both 

 species, the differences being very slight. In spots where the 

 soil is still more decidedly wet during many months of the 

 year there is rivalry, in regard to abundance, on the part of 

 that very curious orchideous plant, the marsh helleborine, 

 Epipactis palustris. Though not so showy as many of its 

 race wild in England, the Epipactis is formed and coloured in 

 a remarkably pretty manner, and in itself quite rewards a 

 journey to the Birkdale sandhills, where it blooms towards 

 the end of July. An almost constant associate of this pretty 

 orchid is one of the genuine orchises, the O. latifolia, or purple 

 marsh orchis ; the flowers borne in a densely contracted 

 though still hyacinthine, cluster. A third orchideous plant, 

 met with upon the inland side of the sandhills, where there is 

 a fair permanent supply of moisture, is the Tway-blade (Listera 

 ovata), more curious than either of the preceding, the stem 

 bearing only two large oval leaves whence the name and at 

 the upper part a score or two of little green blossoms so 

 ridiculously like the human figure that the Listera is often 

 mistaken for the genuine Green-man orchis ( ' Aceras anthro- 

 pophora), but this one occurs only in the south-eastern 

 counties. 



In parts of the sandhills range a trifle more distant, but still 

 within the compass of an agreeable walk, there are tracts such 

 as are congenial to semi-amphibious plants. Here may be 

 gathered the beautiful marsh red-rattle, Pedicularis palustris ; 

 the silver-tassels, prettiest of the cotton-sedges, Eriophorum 



