OKCniDACE^. 113 



Var. ^,fucifera. 



Plate MCCCCLXX. 



O. fiicifera, Sm. Engl. Fl. Vol. IV. p. 32. G. E. Smith, Engl. Bot. Supp. No. 2649. 

 Lindl. Syn. Brit. Fl. p. 262. 



Lateral petals downy or roughish on the inner surface ; labeUum 

 undivided, rarely more or less 3-lobed; lateral humps less prominent 

 than in var. a. 



On chalk downs and rough banks and borders of fields, in chalky 

 or limestone districts. Local. Yar. a has occurred in Kent, Suffolk, 

 Cambridge, Northampton, and Oxford. It has also been reported 

 from Salop and York, but on doubtful authority. Yar. 3 has been 

 found in Dorset (]\Ir. I. C. Mansel), Hants, Sussex, South Kent, and 

 abundantly at Queento^\^l Warren, near Hartlip, North Kent. 



England. Perennial. Spring, early Summer. 



A variable plant, usually smaller and more slender than 0. apifera 

 and 0. aracluiites, but sometimes attaining to as great a size. Flowers 

 generally fewer, often only 2 or 3, but sometimes 6 or 8. Bracts her- 

 baceous, the lower ones usually exceeding the ovary. Calyx segments 

 pale yellowish-green on the inside, not rose-coloured or pink as in the 

 two preceding, rather shorter, rarely above i inch long ; labellum gene- 

 rally a little longer than the sepals, dull purple, with a somewhat 

 glassy slate -coloured horseslioeshaped blotch giving off from the con- 

 vex part of the horseshoe two stripes running towards the apex of the 

 laljellum, which are sometimes free, and sometimes united; the velvety 

 part of the labellum soon changes into pale livid brown, inclining to 

 yellow at the margins. 



The British specimens I have seen were mostly destitute of any 

 appendage or tooth in the notch of the terminal lobe, but I have seen 

 the tooth in a few of the plants collected at Queentown Warren. 



Vars. a and 3 can scarcely be separated ; the roughness or do^vniness 

 of the petals is really the only character which distinguishes each, for 

 the lobmg of the labellum is variable in both forms. There is no 

 difference in the form of the petals as stated by Sir J. E. Smith, nor 

 in the tiine of flowering. I have collected each of the two forms in 

 ilower from April up to the beginning of June, according to the earli- 

 ness or lateness of the season and the warmth of the situation. 



Early Spider Orchis. 



French, Ojphrys araignee. German, Spinnendhnliche Frauenthrane. 



Orchid culture in England is almost a passion with some horticulturists, and 



brings to mind the Tulipomania of the seventeenth century, new and rare specimens 



being only attainable at a great price. In the Catalogue of the Cambridge Botanic 



Gardens for 1815, there occur the names of but a score or two varieties; now eutii'c 



VOL. IX. (i 



