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SHOET NOTES.
Middlesex Plants.— A recent leader in one of the Loudon
journals, referring to the rapid extinction of rare plants in Great
Britain, especially instanced Middlesex as having lost fifty-eight
species within a comparatively recent period. This number is
obviously obtained from Trimen & Dyer's ' Flora,' and although the
actual loss is great enough to be deplored, it is happily not so great
as these figures indicate, for it is certain that several species thus
included have since been re-found, at least a fifth of them by
myself alone. Amongst this list of losses the Orchids were conspicuous
; indeed, all the less common species found a place there.
It may therefore be some satisfaction to learn that nearly all the
species hitherto recorded for the county were gathered last summer
during an hour's evening stroll upon the hills of our very limited
Chalk district. Thus OrcJiis mascula, 0. 'pyramidalis, 0. maculata
(in one case with all the flowers inverted), OjjJmjs apifera, 0. muscif'era,
Neottia Nidus-avis, and Gijmnadenia co7iopsca were all gathered
within the space of 100 yards. This was the first appearance of
Gymnadenia above ground ; at all events, it had hitherto eluded
every search for it during many years, and probably it has not been
gathered since Collinson's
plant was seen, however.
last record about 1790 ; only a single
On another hill Oijhrys apifera was
abundant, and Orchis pyramidalis in such profusion that in one spot
I counted seven plants growing in a circle of a few inches diameter.
In the copse skh-tiug the hill was Hahenaria chloroleuca ; in the
valley beneath, 0. incarnata ; and further to the south, 0. latifolia.
I must confess that, seeing these orchids growing in such unusual
abundance around me, it seemed an unaccountable mystery how
they managed to get relegated to the limbo of " extincts " ! Taking
it for granted that Orchis purpurea was absolutely an error, 0.
ustidata is now the only species wantmg to complete Blackstone's
records. In his time (about 1737) he found it only " sparingly."
Collinson (about 1790) owns that he could " never find this sort,"
so that it would appear to be irrecoverably lost. It is a curious
fact that all the records of the old collectors are from the great
" chalk-pit," where after many years' search I have never happened
upon an orchid of any kind. Yet, as showing how tenaciously this
and certain other species cling to a habitat without spreading
beyond, in the woods intersected by the county boundary more
than one Orchid, Dentaria bidbifera, and Hordeum sylvaticiivi grow
on the Middlesex, and not on the Herts side, whilst CephaJanthcra
yrandijiura and other plants are found in the Herts division only,
notwithstanding that soil and other conditions are exactly similar,
and that the plants in many instances grow at the very edge of the
almost imaginary line which divides the wood—little more than a
copse—into two artificial districts. With Habcnaria hifolia secure
near Edgeware, and Orchis militaris elsewhere, we may hope that
our Orchids are safe for some time to come. It would indeed be
matter for congratulation if as much could be said for sundry other
plants which still linger on, but which
doomed in the near future.—J. Benbow.
we know too well are