65 
ORCHIS PRCETERMISSA Deuce. 
By T. and T. A. Stephenson. 
(Plate 566.) 
Orchis prcetermissa was described by its author in Rep. Bot. 
Exchange Club for 1913, 34, and its status and geographical range 
have been the subject of notes in each subsequent Report. In this 
Journal it has been discussed by Col. Godfery (1919, 137), and was 
by us briefly?' described and figured (1920, 257, tt. 556, 559). More 
recently Dr. Druce has described and named (Rep. B. E. C. 1919, 
577) a var. pulchella , which is a distinct and beautiful plant. 
O. prcetermissa itself is not new. It has been well known to 
botanists all along, but has been referred to O. latifolia L. or (less 
frequently) to O. incarnata L. The claim of the plant to a distinct 
status has been contested, especially by the late Mr. Rolfe, who held 
(Orchid Review, 1920, 165) that O. latifolia is properly a species 
with unspotted leaves, seeing that Reichenbacli had already separated 
(as O. majalis ) the spotted forms from the latifolia aggregate. We 
cannot, however, agree with this contention ; for, in all continental 
Orchis prsetermissa, enlarged flowers. 
floras we have seen, O. latifolia is still described as a plant with 
leaves usually spotted, and no large group of unspotted forms is 
separated, as far as our memory serves. In Ascherson and Graebner’s 
Syn. Mitteleur. Flora, for example, there is a most elaborate analysis 
of the species, in which the first group is placed under majalis ; but 
this includes a group with leaves little or not at all spotted. On the 
other hand, there are other groups or forms with unspotted leaves, but 
none that could be at all identified with O. prcetermissa. Our own 
view is that O. prcetermissa is a thoroughly well-marked and distinct 
species, whose segregation has helped materially to clear up the 
puzzling problems connected with the Marsh Orchids. 
We shall only attempt to describe the forms sufficiently to dis¬ 
tinguish them from their nearest neighbours, and especially from 
O. incarnata. As to habitat, they prefer damp situations, though 
they are not so often found in standing water as O. incarnata. In 
comparison with this species, O. prcetermissa generally flowers about 
Jouenal of Botany.—Vol. 61. [Maech, 1923.] f 
