202 THE ORCHID REVIEW. (JULY, 1913. 
leaves, and purple flowers with darker line on the lip. It. is thus most 
like O. maculata in vegetative characters and O. latifolia in the flowers, but 
there are some perplexing variations, probably reversions, for the limits of 
hybridity are not known. The Devonshire hybrid is interesting in this 
connection, for in 1880 T. R. Archer Briggs recorded finding O. latifolia 
with spotted leaves at Egg Buckland, but remarked that the form with 
spotless leaves was far more common (Fl. Devon., p. 324), and nine years 
later he sent examples to Kew from this locality as probably hybrids, found 
together with the two parents in rough pasture land. 
On the Continent plants with spotted leaves have been figured as forms 
of O. latifolia, and the question arises whether the spots may not be due to 
hybridity. Townsend also mentions this spotted-leaved form, and remarks 
that the lip has nearly equal lobes, with spots forming continuous lines. 
The allied O. foliosa supplies a possibly parallel case. It is a native of 
Madeira, and has plain green leaves, but the late Mr. C. Wolley Dod, in a 
paper on ‘‘ Spontaneous Hybrids among Hardy plants,” remarks: ‘‘ Orchis 
foliosa makes hybrids with O. maculata. I have for many years grown O. | 
foliosa as a hardy plant. Some years ago I noticed spotted leaves among 
them, but now that I have picked out many of these plants I find plain 
leaves are as common in.them as spotted. The flower spike is longer, the 
flower smaller, and the general character and habit partake of both parents”’ 
(Gard. Chron., 1899, i. p. 179). The seeds germinate freely in suitable 
spots. We should like to see examples of this hybrid. 
We should say that O. Braunii may be looked for wherever the two 
parents grow intermixed, and here also might be found other intermediate 
forms of quite doubtful identity, as the following considerations will show. 
It is now known that when a fertile hybrid is self-fertilised, or re-crossed 
with either parent, partial or even complete reversion sometimes takes 
place, and forms appear among the seedlings that would be referred to one 
or the other parent species if their origin were not known. Such forms are 
probably common in nature where species that will hybridise happen to 
grow intermixed, and this would account for the series of perplexing 
intermediate forms seén in the present case. In such localities hybridisation 
may have been going on for an indefinite number of generations, and thus 
obliterate the natural limits of the species. It isa significant fact that 
these intermediate forms do not occur where the species grow separately, 
though of course the species vary within their own limits. 
It would be interesting if someone would make the cross, in the hope of 
reconstructing the hybrid, or self-fertilise a typical example of the wild 
hybrid, and let us see what reversion such a batch of seedlings would show. 
The chief difficulty would be to get the seedlings up, but our hybridists 
would be equal to the task if they would attempt it. R. A. ROLFE. 
