Fr BRUARY, 1922.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 3F 
is only in minor points from a still existing species, the one can only be 
regarded as a variety of the other.” 
eee 
A SPIKE OF ORCHIDS. 
4 UST like a double row of crimson scarlet butterflies, lightly perched! 
upon a slender curving stem, on tip toe fora flight, for all the world as- 
though, alighting one by one, their gradually increasing weight had caused 
the fragile stem to bend, bowing in reverence beneath the beauty it was 
ordained to bear. 
So real is the resemblance, so dainty the formation, that one finds one- 
self watching intently for a sign of life, waiting to see the little band 
dissolve and go flitting slowly through the air a blaze of crimson light. At 
last one realises that they are but flowers set along a stem, not butterflies at 
all, and then they seem more wondrous than they were before. 
HAROLD RAVEN. 
WILD. ORCHTDS: 
EEP in the shady fastness of the forest, in the rich damp mould 
between the rows of trees that form the aisles of God’s own churchy 
grow the wild Orchids. 
It was one evening in June, when the warm air was moist with falling: 
fragrant dew, that I wandered into the forest. At once my eyes were 
dazzled by the sight of so much beauty of colour and form, and as I 
penetrated further into the wooded stronghold it grew still more beautiful, 
more truly wild. 
No sound save the soft murmured crooning of the trees, the sleepy 
twittering of roosting birds, and occasionally a scurry of brown leaves as: 
some startled rabbit leaped away in front of me. 
I voyaged as a tired wanderer in some Elysian grove, thankful for the’ 
healing coolness of the scented breeze that fanned my brow. 
Then it was that I came upon the crowning beauty of what I think. 
must have been the altar of Nature’s church; a little clearing bordered by 
tall mossed trees, the red mould of its soil serried with tiny crystal runnels of 
water, and dotted and grouped about it the creamy dew-kissed spikes of the: 
Butterfly Orchis. 
They rose a graceful pale green stem of twelves inches or so in height 
clothed with pointed, sharply-cut leaves, and bearing on each spike some ten: 
butterfly-like blossoms. It was as though I had entered Fairyland, into the 
grove where slept the butterflies, and I stepped soft-footed, with bated. 
breath, fearful lest I wake them from their rest. HAROLD RAVEN. 
The Croft, Ruddington, Notts. 
