HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G O SSI P. 



127 



bractse, and presented transitions from a petaloid 

 ligule to lanceolate, or navicular petaloid expansions 

 (Fig. 76). The flowers of the lower half were normal, 

 excepting that the spurs varied from a mere process 

 to little over an inch long (?). Some of the flowers 

 were perfectly abortive. 



I do not think the orchids are very free seeders as 

 a whole ; among the best are included the commonest 

 species — Epipactis latifolia, Sw., Listera ovata, Br., 

 Hebenaria canopsea, Linn., Orchis metadata, Linn., 

 and perhaps Aceras anthropophora, Br., and also 

 Cephalanthera grandiflora, Bab. The latter requires 



Fig. 74.— Stomata of A. anthropophora. 



Fig. 75. — Seed of same X 100. 



Fig. 76. — Gymnadenia conojisea. Anomalous flowers. 



from the antheses of the flowers in May to the end of 

 August or September, to mature its seeds ; even then 

 the capsules do not always dehisce, but wither, and 

 subsequently fall to the ground. Anacamptis pyra- 

 midalis, Rich., is anything but a good seed producer. 

 I have repeatedly made careful observations on many 

 of these plants, from their flowering time to the end 

 of August, or later, and have found that scarcely 

 fifteen per cent, of the capsules matured, and produced 

 good seeds ; the locality and situation must un- 

 doubtedly have much influence in matter of this 

 kind. Most of the above were in " pine-copses " on 

 limestone. 



Some of the tubercule-bearing orchids do not 

 flower annually without intermission, which is con- 

 firmed by the appended examples. On a small spot 

 on one of the chalk downs in "Mid Kent" Ophrys 

 muscifera, Huds., was exceptionally abundant ; among 

 others I noted a very large specimen 18J inches high, 

 with a spike of eleven flowers and bud.* At the 

 flowering-time (June) in the next year, I made an 

 excursion to the same place, with the object of making 

 further observations on this and other species ; when 

 I arrived they appeared no more abundant here than 

 elsewhere, but as the exact situation of the large 

 specimen had been previously marked, and which had 

 evidently not appeared, I dug for the tubercules, to 

 ascertain whether they were not dormant, which after- 

 wards I found actually to be the case. Again there 

 were several luxuriant specimens of Epipactis latifolia, 

 Sw., growing on the borders of a copse near Highgate ; 

 the next year none made their appearance, which 

 seemed to me to be a similar case to the above. This 

 year they have already (April 2) commenced to put 

 forth shoots. Precisely the same thing presented itself 

 to me in Sussex with E. latifolia, Sw., and in Kent 

 with whole banks of numerous O. pyramidalis, Linn. 



THE ENTOMOLOGICAL SPRING OF 1893 

 AT IPSWICH. 



» By Claude Morley. 



THE early months of the present year will long 

 live in the minds of all botanists and ento- 

 mologists. Perhaps a few notes upon them spent 

 among the delightful woods and lanes of East Anglia, 

 which are trembling under the prospect of becoming 

 smothered some day in a coal-mining district, may be 

 acceptable to those who are compiling local lists of 

 the various Orders of Insects. To the lepidopterist — 

 I speak for myself — spring commences with the ap- 

 pearance of Hyber7iia 1'upicapraria, whose penchant 

 for ponds and puddles I alluded to in these pages 

 some little time ago, and I have to thank Mr. Holt 

 for his kind reply. Therefore the winter is of but 

 short duration, ceasing this year on the 30th of 

 January, when I found the above-named species, 

 together with C. britmata and a hibernated Ceraslis 

 vacciiiii, on water, and took the local Hybernia 

 leucophaaria flying by day at that grand old hunting- 

 ground, which our grandfathers loved and patronised, 

 the Belstead Woods. Thus it was that I flung off 

 the cloak of winter sloth and awoke to the work of 

 the new year. On the same day I took pupae of 

 Smerinthus tilitc, Bislon hirtaria, Amphydasis 

 betularia, Axylia putris and Tceniocatnpa gothica ; 

 and my Coleoptera, mostly from the sods at the base 

 of trees, comprised : Ocypus olens, Pristonychus 

 terricola, Pterostichus madidns, Amara plebia, 



* From a specimen in my herbarium. 



