A New British Orchid

Abstract

THE flora of the duneland area between Liverpool and Southport (botanically “south Lancashire”, vice-county 59, but in all official and local nomenclature “west Lancashire”) has always interested botanists well outside the local area owing to the many special forms of plants adapted to the peculiar habitat, and as a subject for plant ecology it much resembles the Flanders coast. Its list of sixteen Orchidaceæ” is a special attraction and this has now been extended by the discovery and naming of a new species, Epipactis pendula (C. Thomas, J. Bot., Dec., 1941) previously regarded by local botanists as E. dunensis (Godfrey, “British Orchidaceæ” ; Green, “Flora of Liverpool”), which in turn had for years been locally considered but an early-flowering variety of the common broadleaved helleborine, E. latifolia, but with smaller, greener, less-expanded flowers. The new species was found and described in some numbers from Formby and appears to prefer the clearings by the woods, whereas E. dunensis proper is more typical of the open dunes.