THE MOUNTAIN BOG 



emerge in broad hay meadows, bending blue with huge 

 old clumps and dense colonies of Genticma asclepiadea. 

 Here and there glows a belated golden globe of Trollius, 

 abundant in its season as in the meadows of the High 

 Force, or round the source of the Ribble under the 

 northern end of Ingleborough. Ranunculus aconitifolius 

 is here, too, and glorious Thalictrum aquilegifolium, and 

 a broad stretch of Epipactis palusiris, vaguely recalling a 

 small and oddly leafy version of Ocontoglossum pulchel- 

 lum, with pretty flowers of rose and white. Of other 

 Marsh Orchises there are our handsome natives, mascula 

 and maculata, both loving rich soil, damp rather than 

 dry, and both quite easy to estabhsh, if only you take the 

 bulbs in autumn, being careful not to break the clod in 

 which you dig them up. Both these luxuriate in the 

 water-meadows of Swiss streams, and in size of spike 

 almost recall their big brother. Orchis foliosa, from 

 Madeira, a gigantic maculata, with dense, six-inch spears 

 of purplish blossom, which is perfectly hardy and easy in 

 rich damp soil, in a fairly sheltered, well-drained situa- 

 tion. Orchis militaris, with its near relations, Simia and 

 Sambucina, are very handsome plants of similar persua- 

 sion, but dislike excessive damp, rare species from 

 meadows in Southern England. Another pretty native, 

 Morio, is hardly distinct enough for admittance to the 

 garden ; ustulata is quaint and inconspicuous ; as for the 

 gigantic, monstrous Lizard Orchis, with its vast-tailed, 

 stinking flowers of greenish tone, this plant, so rare that 

 there are perhaps only two specimens or so still lurking 

 in Kent and the South, is a kind that craves for hot, 

 dry, chalky soil and baking summer heat. But Orchis 

 laxiflora is a brilliant, loose-spiked cousin of Mascula, 

 hardly less rare than Orchis hircina, an alien immigrant 

 upon ballast-hills at Hartlepool (and perhaps native, like 

 so many rarities, to the Channel Islands), which is pleased 



