ORCHIS militaris.
Military Orchis.
GYNANDRIA Monandria.
Gen. Char. Nectary with a spur behind.
Spec. Char. Lip of the nectary 5-lobed, with raised,
rough, dark points ; two middle lobes dilated,
rounded.' Spur obtuse, not half the length of the
germen. Calyx converging, acuminate.
Syn. O. militaris. Linn. Sp. PIA333. Jacq. Ic. Rar.
v. 4. t. 598. Bicheno in Tr. of L. Soc. v. 12.31.
Smith Engl. FI. v. 4. 14. Hook. Brit. FI. 371.
O. militaris majoris varietas. Vaill. Par. t. 31. f . 21.
O. galea et alis fere cinereis. Raii Syn. 378.
O. oreades, trunco pallido, brachiis et cruribus saturate
rubescentibus. Merr. Pin. 85.
T h e annexed figure of this very elegant species is the
first that has appeared in any English work, and cannot fail
to be gratifying to the botanist. With the aid of the very
satisfactory plate of O. tephrosanthos, in Hook. FI. Lond.
t. 82, he will be enabled at once to identify these two species.
The present is intermediate in the size of the whole
plant, and in the flowers, between O.fusca and O. tephrosanthos,
with which the elder botanists associated it. The
flowers are of a more slender and elongated form than in
O.fusca, yet partaking more of the dark hair-like blotches
which so singularly mark the nectary of that plant. The
4 lobes, representing the arms and legs of a man, are not
equal as in O. tephrosanthos, the two upper being longer and
narrower in proportion than the two lower, while the intermediate
lobe is not so broad as in O. fusca, nor yet a