Juty, r9r5,] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 207 
Committee for the last two years. He leaves a widow and two young 
children, to whom we tender our deepest sympathy. 
ey ORCHIS PR/ETERMISSA. | 
N Orchis collected in a boggy place at Middlebeere Heath, near Corfe 
Castle, Dorset, by Mr. C. B. Green, has been identified by Mr. G. C. 
Druce as his O. preetermissa (see O.R., xxi. p. 39), and Mr. A. B. Jackson, 
of the Imperial Institute, has kindly handed me a specimen sent to him by 
Mr. Green. From the reference to the colour of the flowers I had half 
suspected that O. pretermissa might be the crimson coast form of O. 
incarnata, although the habitat was not in agreement. The specimen now 
sent agrees well with the plant figured at t. 2308 of Sowerby’s English 
Botany as O. incarnata, which Syme reproduced at t. 1457 as O. latifolia, 
and I believe it is also the purple form of O. incarnata mentioned by 
Townsend (Fl. Hamps., pp. 341, 504) as found in meadows by the Stour 
and its tributaries west of Hern Station, together with the flesh-coloured 
form. Mr. Townsend states that in these meadows Orchid latifolia also 
occurs, flowering later than O. incarnata. 
The question now arises as to the status of the plant. Long before 
connecting this purple form with O. pretermissa I formed the opinion that 
it may be a hybrid between O. incarnata and O. latifolia. The characters 
of O. incarnata are well summarised by the late Mr. C. B. Clarke in his 
account of the Bransbury Marsh plant (Journ. Linn. 506.4 Kix. pi, 206, ts 31), 
and are shown in the coloured figure. It has comparatively narrow 
ascending leaves, slightly hooded at the extreme apex, and a rather narrow 
spike of flesh-coloured flowers, streaked with rose on the lip, which has 
rather small reflexed side lobes. . latifolia has broader, more spreading 
leaves, and broader spikes of purple flowers, with large, more spreading side 
lobes. ©. pratermissa, as seen in Sowerby’s figure and in Mr. Jackson’s 
plant, is most like a luxuriant O.incarnata with a strong purple suffusion in 
the flowers, and the modifications are in the direction of O. latifolia. It is 
more than a mere question of colour difference. 
A hybrid between the two has been described under the name of 
O. Aschertoniana, Hausskn., and the O. incarnato-latifolia figured by 
M. Schulze (Orch. Deutsch., t. 19 b) is cited as a form of it by Camus, who 
describes the hybrid as having narrower leaves than QO. latifolia, and darker- 
coloured flowers than O. incarnata. It has a wide distribution, and may 
be expected wherever the two species grow togéther. It is not improbable 
that hybrid intermediates may partly account for the way these two species 
have been confused together, and with other allies, as the existence of 
