130 Lees : Note on Hellehorine alro-rubens. 



able dissimilarity, but the locale is uniform as to cover and 

 aspect, and verj/ unlike the bare exposed lime-rock fanged and 

 platy-ledged ground of a furlong or two away, where H. airo- 

 rubens type {ovalis Bab.) still flourishes hardily, and preserves 

 its stiff stunt character with a brown-red almost buttony 

 perianth, just as on the Great Orme or the Stackhouse ' borrins '' 

 of the Settle pale. Surely one may predicate as a botanic 

 axiom that gradual alterations in environage will bring about 

 differences in vegetative growth relationships of one part to 

 another ? That, I take it, is the natural evolution of a plant's 

 ' generation ' — a period, in this case of a rhizomatous orchid, 

 of at least five years. In the influences of bringing-up plant 

 life distinctly parallels animal. How-so-be-it the square mile 

 of Grass wood, upper and lower, furnishes collectors with the 

 formes which follow ? 



1. H. latifolia Druce. Growing singly, perianths livid- 

 greenish, bosses of corolla-lip smooth and distinct, without an 

 intermediate tongue or coil. »The leaves vary from the blunt 

 oval of type to narrower, and slightly acute in the var. angiisti- 

 folia Druce. The state (?) with purplish-livid perianths has 

 been called purpiirea Celak ; but I state these distinctions 

 ' without prejudice,' expressing no opinion as to how worthily 

 they merit special designation. 



2. H. media (Fries) Druce. [Epip. violacea of ' Flora W. 

 Yorks,' p. 434). Growing in tufts, perianths more or less clear 

 greenish-violet or pink, but bosses of lip rugose-plicate tending 

 to confluence ; in the var. atro-viridis (Linton) Druce, developed 

 by fission so as to produce a central intermediary coil, rather 

 longer than the lateral hunches. The leaves vary from lati- 

 folian to orbicular cuspidate in var. phatyphylla Druce, but in 

 both they do not abruptly change into foliaceous bracts as 

 with latifolia or atvo-rnbens, so far as I can judge from the few 

 specimens I have examined. Only Gibb's wood, Newton-in- 

 Bowland (Hodder area) has furnished, to Miss Peel's investiga- 

 tion, a distinctive atro-viridis, in which the bracts are large 

 and leafy, lessening in size truly, but all tapering ovate-lanceo- 

 late, except the lower two ; in conjunction with which was the 

 elongated central tongue between the lip bosses. The soil 

 there was ' impure Yoredale, very little lime in it,' yet what 

 Mr. Druce certified as true H. media (Fr.) grew there with it — 

 another hint at a conclusion that all these names are designative 

 of formes not stable ver-species. 



Naturalist,. 



