SEPTEMBER, 1922.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 279 
NOTES ON SUSSEX ORCHIDS. 
URING several successive years it has been my pleasure to spend a few 
occasional days collecting Sussex Orchids. By collecting I do not 
mean digging up every plant discovered and chancing to fate whether they 
will survive when planted in my garden, but noting the conditions under 
which I have found them, and generally bringing home a few representative 
spikes of the various species and their varieties. Growing to no great 
height, and generally intermixed with other vegetation, their real beauty is 
not always discerned until a plant in full flower is placed upon a table or 
the staging of a greenhouse, where the characters can be compared with 
other members of the family ; sometimes these consist of relations from a 
foreign land. 
In the early part of the year I make frequent journeys in search of the 
shining green and spotted leaves of Orchis mascula, and having marked the 
situations it is not many weeks before the flower spikes again attract my 
notice. This species is not only plentiful, but is to be found growing in a 
diversity of soils and situations. The plants usually found by amateur 
explorers are those fully exposed to view in open fields, where they lead a 
semi-starved existence. My best finds have always been on the shady side 
of hedges and woods, where the moist soil and air bring forth much finer 
results. On one occasion really good spikes were found in the partial shade 
of a thin wood, and still better ones when I descended the side of an old 
iron-stone quarry. The finest it has been my good fortune to find were from 
the moistest and shadiest area in the centre of one of the quarries, where 
since its disuse many years ago a considerable depth of decayed vegetable 
matter has accumulated. Several plants that I removed from open fields 
to more congenial positions in my garden have vastly improved in size and 
quality. A few years ago I came across a young plant, apparently 
unflowered, that lacked the typical spotting on the leaves, and, believing 
that I had discovered an albino variety, carefully removed the same to my 
garden for security’s sake. Two seasons later it produced a lovely spike of 
pure-white flowers, and fully satisfied my long expectations. Soon after the 
flowering period, the foliage of this species decays, and thus one of our 
little treasures i3 hidden and preserved beneath the surface of the ground 
until another season. : 
Just after the spikes of Orchis mascula have reached their full beauty, 
the flowers of Orchis Morio make their appearance. Ina large meadow I 
found, about the middle of May, a multitude of plants in all degrees of 
colour from the darkest purple to the lightest pink, but in every es the 
petals were distinctly marked with green veins, hence the name ‘ Green- 
_ winged Orchis.’”’ All these plants were growing on the northern side of a 
