190 Dr uce : Orchis praetermissa. 
seemed sufficient evidence in favour of its being a distinct 
species. 
Mr. friend, Mr. P. M. Hall, and his colleague, Mr. R. B. 
Ullman, who have been with great assiduity studying the 
Orchidaceae while at school at Winchester, and have con- 
tributed very excellent papers on the subject to the Report 
of the Natural History Society of that College, have been during 
1913 specially engaged in examining the various forms of the 
March Orchis, for which the meadows of Hampshire afford 
so favourable a hunting ground. Quite independently, they 
came to the same conclusion that there were two distinct 
incarnata. One of these is the flesh-coloured plant alluded 
to, the other the subject of this paper.* 
I append descriptions of the three species, that of incarnata 
being made rather wider than the definition given by Mr. 
Clarke, in order to take in the purely flesh-coloured and 
albino forms, and to conform more closely to the Linnean 
definition. But there is still another form which is found on 
the sand-dunes and sea-coasts, which appears also to require 
definition, but it must await further examination. Yet 
another occurs on the northern coasts, which may possibly be 
the northern analogue of prcetermissa. This species is doubtless 
widely distributed through the southern and midland areas. 
It is not unlikely that hybrids of this with maculata are some- 
times passed as 0 . latifolia, but with this group as with the 
Helleborines the range of variability is extremely great and 
will require much patient work, especially in the field and in 
cultivation before the limits of the three species can be 
accurately ascertained, or it may be yet other species described. 
It may be added that hitherto I have been unable to meet 
with any description or figure which applies to this plant, 
even the more recent Monograph of the European Orchids, 
by Camus, failing to supply one. 
O. praetermissa Druce. O. incarnata auct. et ‘ Ashmolean 
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 un- 
equally, 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 
♦See Rep. Winch. Coll. Nat. Hist. Soc. for 1912-3, PP- S-12, 1913. 
Naturalist, 
