264 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [SEPTEMBER, 19009. 
the hand, they make no effect in the grass; indeed most folk will walk over 
Ophrys aranifera in full flower, with six or seven flowers open on the stem, 
so curiously harmonised is it to its surroundings of both green and withered 
winter grasses. 
The Ophrys tribe are particularly interesting from their habit ot 
appearing or vanishing without any apparent reason. No doubt some are 
dormant, or rather only make tuber growth beneath the surface, but the 
way that strong flowering plants will appear when I am sure they were not 
in existence the year before, is a continual surprise to me. It is almost 
equally a certainty that if there is a particularly large group of them one 
spring, and you put a mark in the grass, so as to be sure of their where- 
abouts next year, you will more often find none; yet I have known one or 
two isolated tubers that have come up yearly in the same exact spot for ten 
years without ever failing. It is one of the elusive charms of the Orchis 
family to puzzle their admirers by their wayward behaviour! 
Scarborough. Epwarp H. WooDALL. 
[Orchis longibracteata is the interesting species whose history was given 
at page 93 of our fourteenth volume, under the title of ‘* An Early Orchis,” 
a plant brought from the Riviera, having flowered in the open air in Norfolk » 
at the end of February. It is a widely distributed Mediterranean species, 
~ 
ranging from Cyprus to the Canary Islands, and found also in North 
Africa. It is said to flower from January to March. _ It is figured at t. 357 
of the Botanical Register, from a plant which flowered at Liverpool about 
ninety years ago. It is called the Winter Orchid of Sicily, as it flowers in 
the depth of the Mediterranean winter.—EpD.] 
PROMENAZA MICROPTERA, 
THE pretty little Promenza microptera has been re-introduced, a plant 
which was imported growing in a clump of P. stapelioides in Messrs. Stuart 
Low & Co.’s nursery, proving to belong to this rare species. It was 
described as long ago as 1881 (Rchb. f. in Gard. Chron., 1881, ii. p. 134). 
Its habitat was not stated at the time, though the genus so far as at present 
known is entirely Brazilian. It has the dwarf habit of its allies. The 
pseudobulbs are elliptical-oblong, and about half an inch long, and the only 
leaf seen is lanceolate, acute, and 34 inches long by under half an inch 
broad. The flowers have an expanse of 14 inches, and the sepals and petals 
are light green, lanceolate and acute, while the lip is three-lobed, the basal ~— 
half white with numerous narrow purple bars, and the front lobe green with a 
about three or four broad purple bars.. The column is pale green, with a purple 
stain at the base. The history of the genus was given about four years ago 
(O.R., xiii. pp. 260-263). R, A. 
