340 THE BOTANICAL EXCHANGE CLUB OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



spotted ; more or less appressed to the stem, erect or ascending. 

 Bracts as long, longer, or sometimes shorter than fls., often coloured. 

 Flowers flesh-coloured, pale dull lilac, rarely white or yellowish, 

 usually in a dense, elliptical or cylindric, obtuse spike. Lip spotted 

 and streaked with darker markings measuring about 3-4 mm., but 

 when flattened under pressure 6-7 mm., faintly three-lobed, entire, or 

 sub-entire, the middle lobe when present often a little longer than the 

 lateral one. The flower viewed from the front, owing to the erect 

 upper petals and sepals and the reflexed lateral margins of the lip, 

 looks long and narrow, and is actually smaller than praetermissa, 

 Spur conical, blunt, incurved, shorter than ovary. 



The foregoing description (drawn up from Berkshire plants) 

 I believe refers to the restricted Linnean plant which differs 

 as Linnaeus says from lati folia by "foliis pallide viridibus im- 

 maculatis ; nec saturate viridibus maculatis. Caule dimidio breviore. 

 Bracteis vix flore aut germine longioribus. Corollis pallide 

 incarnatis, nec rubris. Petalis 2 dorsalibus totaliter reflexis ; 

 nec tantum patulis nec maculatis. Nectarii labium structura 

 convenit." As Mr C. B. Clarke (Journ. Linn. Soc. xix., 206, 1881) 

 says, it agrees with Afzelius' specimen collected at the identical spot 

 where Linnaeus first collected his incarnata, and is marked by the 

 illustrious Fries 0. incarnata certiss. I find however the lip is not 

 always marked with yellow, but there is a great constancy in the 

 flesh-coloured narrow flowers, and in the strict inflorescence, while its 

 time of flowering usually, if not always, precedes that of its ally. 



O. praetermissa Druce. 0. incarnata auct. et Ashmo- 

 lean Nat. Hist. Soc, Oxfordshire Report t. 1., 1904. Root two 

 palmate tubers, with long stout rootlets. Stem hollow, 6-18 inches. 

 Leaves normally linear-lane, narrowing from a broad base to the 

 hooded apex, usually gradually, sometimes unequally, and sometimes 

 somewhat broader in the middle ; yellowish green, green or greyish or 

 darker green, unspotted, erect or ascending. Bracts often coloured, 

 as long as, or longer than flowers. Flowers conspicuous, of various 

 shades of rose-purple, reddish, or dark crimson purple, in a more or 

 less lax cylindric or conical spike. Lip broad, (as broad as long) flat, 

 more or less distinctly three lobed, the central lobe smaller, and 

 slightly longer, as long or slightly shorter than the lateral lobe, the sides 

 not reflexed, marked with spots, lines, or blotches of a darker colour, 



