Jury, 1915.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 195 
Fae ORCHIS HYBRIDA. las 
PIKES of a very beautiful natural hybrid Orchis have been sent to Kew 
by Mr. George Reuthe, F.R.H.S., Fox Hill Hardy Plant Nursery, 
Keston, Kent. They were collected in Bavaria two years ago, where the parent 
species, O. purpurea (fusca) and O. militaris grow together. They belong 
to a plant whose hybrid origin was recognised many years ago, for we 
find it recorded in 1830 by Reichenbach as Orchis hybrida, Boenningh. 
(Fl. Germ. Excurs., p. 125), with the remark that it is intermediate between 
O. inilitaris and O. fusca, and is perhaps a hybrid between-them. It was 
found at Kalkhugeln, near Munster, Bohemia. But it has a much earlier 
history, for it was figured by Jacquin about 1786 (Ic. Pl. Rar., iti. p. 16, ,t- 
598) under the name of O. militaris. The mistake was pointed out in 1844, 
by Godron (FI. Lorraine, iii. p. 33), and was then called O. Jacquinii, a 
rare species near O. fusca. O. hybrida was apparently unknown to him. 
A. year later O. Jacquinii was made a variety of O. fusca—var. stenoloba 
(Coss. & Germ. Fl. Env. Paris, p. 550), and under this name it was after- 
wards figured by Reichenbach (Fl. Germ., xiii. p. 31, t. 377). The name of 
©. hybrida appears on the plate, and the two now appear to have been 
connected for the first time. Lindley next called it O. militaris var. hybrida 
(Gen. & Sp. Orch., p. 227), but remarked that he had seen no specimen, and 
still later it became O. fusca var. bifida (Bogenh. Fl. Jena, p. 350). 
Timbal-Lagrave, who in 1855 published a small memoir on European 
Orchid hybrids, called it O. purpureo-militaris, and recognised its variability, 
or the possibility of recrossing with the parents, for he indicated two other 
forms, under the names of O. super-purpureo-militaris and O. sub- 
It has also received the names of O. fusca var. 
and O. dubia, Camus, which facts 
It is well figured by M. 
purea. It has been 
purpureo-militaris. 
triangularis, O. angusticruris, Franch., 
show how greatly its history has been confused. 
Schulze (Orch. Deutsch., t. 9 b) as O. militaris X pur 
found in several localities in France, Switzerland, and Germany. 
The plants have done well at Keston, doubtless because of the 
f the soil, for the parents are chalk-lovers, and Mr. 
Reuthe remarks that the chalk crops up about 200 yards to the north, 
where Cephalanthera pallens grows, and again about geo yards to the 
south, along a range of hills. Three of the spikes are particularly fine, and 
one form rather inclines towards O. militaris and. another towards O. 
purpurea, though they can be generally described as intermediate. It would 
be interesting if Mr. Reuthe would cross the two, and raise a batch of 
seedlings, which would be quite possible in such a soil. R.A.R 
calcareous nature o 
