Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 12.djvu/48

30 information Gerard communicated of the Ornithophora candida, 165, or Butterfly Orchis; but the figure is Orchis fusca: and there is little doubt but that this was intended, since Johnson corrects the synonym in his edition, and complains greatly of the transposition of the figures in the chapter in which this plant stands. Caspar Bauhine, too, refers to this icon, excluding the synonym, under his Cynosorchis militaris major, which is unquestionably our present plant. Johnson's Orchis Strateumatica, p. 215, is an improved figure, and is copied in Parkinson's Theatrum Botanicum, p. 1344. no. 6. The description of the flower is significant enough, being like the "body of a man with his hands and legs cut off." Dillenius is the next author who takes notice of it as an English plant (for Ray does not seem to have been acquainted with its being indigenous); and though his figure in the Synopsis is stiff and bad, his description is appropriate — "Galea obtusa atro-rubens minusque surrecta, qua nota a præcedente (O. tephrosanthos) distinguitur." Vaillant, who understood the Orchideæ better than any of his predecessors, has given an excellent drawing of the flowers of this and others nearly allied to it; but it is curious that he should attribute to its flowers an insupportable smell of the goat, while Curtis says they have a strong smell, somewhat like, but not so pleasant as, Anthoxanthum. Blackstone is the last English author of the old school, who seems to have been acquainted with it, having found it plentifully "in the old chalk-pit near the paper-mill at Harefield." Since his time it has been gathered frequently in the fine chalky districts of Kent and Middlesex; but we do not know that it is found beyond these counties. Haller in his ''Hist. t. 31, and Curtis Flor. Lond. fasc.'' 6. t. 64. have given superb figures of it.

This Orchis surpasses all its English congeners in size and grandeur, and may be known by the lip of the nectary being divided into three segments, the two lateral ones being linear, and the

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