YELLOW IRIS OR FLAG. 74 



fcetidissima}, with purple sepals, yellow petals and stigmas. 

 Flowers not quite so large as the last. Woods and copses. 

 May to July. 



Marsh Orchis (Orchis latifolid). 



There are nearly forty British species of Orchideae, divided 

 into sixteen genera ; and in the space at our disposal it is 

 impossible to give anything like an adequate account of the 

 group or of the specific characters. An attempt will be made, 

 however, to make the reader acquainted with the general 

 structure by means of three figures. The first of these 

 represents the Marsh Orchis (O. latifolia), a species commonly 

 to be met in wet meadows and marshy places, flowering from 

 May to July. The two tubers are palmate, that is, more or less 

 flattened like a hand, and terminating in finger-like processes. 

 The leaves chiefly spring from the summit of one of these 

 tubers, the lowest acting as sheath for the next, and so on, the 

 tubular flower-stem rising through all the sheaths. The leaves 

 are oblong, and spotted with purple. The inflorescence is a 

 spike, the flowers crowded upon it, but separated by the long 

 three-nerved green bracts. The structure of these flowers will 

 be found to differ widely from all we have considered in these 

 pages. The perianth is placed above the (consequently 

 inferior) ovary, which is twisted. This twist, it will be well 

 to bear in mind, brings the flower " upside down." The three 

 sepals and the three petals are equally coloured, and it is 

 therefore convenient to speak of them as the perianth. There 

 is only one stamen, which is supported by the pistil. Two of 

 the perianth leaves combine to form a hood over the stamen, 

 and a third is greatly larger than the others, divided into three 

 lobes and hanging down like the lip of a labiate flower. This 

 is known as the labellum, and it is continued backwards and 

 downwards as a hollow spur, in which, however, honey is not 



