ILLUSTRATIONS. 127 



teristics of the group have been adverted to in describing the 

 Spotted Palmate Orchis and the Ladies' Slipper, so that we 

 may now confine our remarks to the Bee Orchis before us. This 

 plant is furnished with a pair of tubers, of which one is grow- 

 ing and the other waning : the former being in process of for- 

 mation as a store of nutriment for the stem of the succeeding 

 year, while the latter has been exhausted by the growth of the 

 stem of the present year, which has, as it were, sucked out its 

 vitals. The stem rises from nearly a foot to a foot and a half 

 in height, erect, leafy near the base, and terminating in a 

 loose spike of curiously coloured flowers. The leaves are ob- 

 long or lanceolate, the upper ones being the smaller. The 

 flowers have at the base a bract as long as the ovary, which 

 latter simulates a flower-stalk, the flowers being really ses- 

 sile ; they consist of three ovate spreading or reflexed sepals, 

 which are always more or less tinged with pink, two petals, 

 which are smaller than the sepals and nearly erect, and a part, 

 very unlike all the rest, called the lip or labellum, which is 

 broad and convex, of a rich velvety-brown, downy at the sides, 

 smooth in the middle, and variously marked by paler lines or 

 spots ; while on each side is a small downy lobe turned un- 

 der, and at the point three terminal ones, which are turned 

 under so as to be quite concealed. It is this lip which is sup- 

 posed to resemble a bee. The column is erect, with a distinct 

 curved beak above the anther. The plant is found plentiful 

 in some of the southern or eastern parts of England, growing 

 in dry pastures in limestone districts. 



Of the Liliaceous family, which differs from many of the 

 foregoing Monocotyledons in having a superior ovary, the 

 well-known Lily-of- the- Valley* affords a good example. This 

 sweet little plant 



* Convallaria majalis Plate 20 E. 



