378 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



iiirta. Here the pollen-grains, taken from the unopened flowers 

 and examined under a one-eighth inch objective, were certainly 

 small and ellipsoidal, with a few exceptions which appeared to be 

 normal. V. floribunda Jord. is considered by some writers to be 

 a hybrid between V. odorata X hirta : I believe, however, that it 

 is in reality a good species. In this case, and in that of a plant 

 from Banwell, Somerset, with red-purple, highly scented flowers 

 (which I take to be a cross between V. subcarnea and V. hirta) 

 unmistakably sound pollen is produced. In V. ericetorum x stag- 

 nina (an acknowledged hybrid) from Wood Walton Fen, the 

 pollen-grains, examined in water under the microscope, were found 

 to be spherical, and filled with protoplasmic contents. After re- 

 maining some time in water (one to three days) some of the grains 

 were found to be bluntly triangular, with a pore at each angle, 

 somewhat simulating the pollen of V. cornuta. This condition 

 probably marks the commencement of germination, and the emis- 

 sion of the pollen-tube. It is clear therefore that, although certain 

 hybrid violets are infertile, the abortive development of the pollen 

 cannot always be regarded as a diagnostic character in discrimi- 

 nating between the true species and the hybrid. — E. S. Gregory. 



Ophrys Trollii (p. 343). — There is what looks like an excellent 

 figure of an original specimen (in the herbarium of the Zurich 

 Polytechnic), said to be the only coloured one yet published, in 

 Max Schulze's Die Orchidaceen Deutschlands, Deutsch-Oesterrichs 

 und der Schweiz (Gera-Untermhaus, 1894). The German des- 

 cription may be translated thus : — " Tubers roundish, stem four- 

 leaved. Spike three-flowered. Bracts lanceolate, large, longer 

 than the germen. Outer perigon-leaves lanceolate, acuminate, 

 about as long as the germen, reddish outside with green nerves, 

 rose-red inside ; the two lateral inner perigon-leaves two-thirds the 

 length of the outer, linear, brownish. Lip three-lobed ; lateral lobes 

 short, linear, yellow; central lobe narrowly lanceolate, elongate, 

 long-acuminate, neither emarginate nor reflexed, with a purple-red 

 stripe in the middle, yellow at the margin. Column greenish, 

 with a nearly straight, green, linear, pointed beaklet. By the old 

 castle of Wulfingen, near Winterthur, in Switzerland ; not refound." 

 This description w r as made by Hegetschweiler from the original 

 drawing ; he considered it to be intermediate between 0. fuciflora 

 and 0. muscifera. Kegel thought it a hybrid between them ; but 

 M. Schulze remarks that " this conclusion is contradicted by the 

 long-acuminate outer perigon-leaves, and the narrow, long-acumi- 

 nate central lobe of the lip/' Reichenbach fil., who regarded it 

 as a variety of 0. apifera, due to deep shade, described it in his 

 Iconographia as having the lip acute, triangular, long; lateral 

 lobes more or less undeveloped. He also gave this name to 

 plants found near Jena by M. Schulze, who would, however, 

 rather regard them as transition-forms. Thus it is fairly clear 

 that the Winterthur specimens represent the extreme of a series. 

 Not having seen any of the British plants which have been so 

 named, I cannot offer any opinion as to their correctness ; but the 

 beautiful plate referred to above is quite different from any 



