142 BRITISH ORCHIDS 



tells the story of a most worthy Yorkshire vicar who, 

 having marked a spot in Arncliffe where a single clump 

 of this precious plant lingered, used to shear off the 

 flower-buds every spring before they opened, hoping 

 that thereby the treasure might elude the scrutiny of 

 the rapacious collector. And so it did for many years 

 until one spring its guardian was laid low by illness. 

 The orchid put forth its flowers ; a fatal advertisement ; 

 for when the vicar recovered his health and went to 

 visit his treasure-plant, he found a gaping hole whence 

 it had been uprooted. I feared this might be the last 

 of it ; but a ray of hope is conveyed in a letter from a 

 good friend of British wild-flowers (though he is a 

 nurseryman !) in the north of England, who assures 



me that Our Lady's Slipper still survives near 



thumbscrews shall not constrain me to reveal the 

 name ! He says it is growing among lily-of-the-valley, 

 whereof the leaves are near enough in shape and size 

 to act as a screen to the orchid. 



It is wonderful how these and other territorial orchids 

 manage to propagate themselves, for their seeds are 

 exceedingly minute, and the herbage in which the 

 plants grow is usually very dense. Howbeit, they 

 make up in the multitude of their seeds for the insigni- 

 ficant size thereof. Darwin found that a single spike 

 of the early purple orchis (0. mascula) produced 

 186,000 seeds, and calculated that if they all germinated 

 and their offspring likewise, the great-grandchildren of 

 the original plant would suffice to cover the entire 

 surface of the earth ! 



