This Orchis is common all over the country, where it grows in damp
woods, on chalky banks, and in meadows and pastures.
You find it in summer.
The leaves are stained with purplish-black blotches as in the early
Purple Orchis, but they are narrower and taper more to a point. Notice
the small leaves which cling at intervals to the flower-stalk all the
way up.
The flowers grow in a dense cone-shaped head at the top of the
flower-stalk. The petals are pale lilac or nearly white, and are spotted
or streaked with purple. They are curiously shaped. The broad petal,
which folds back like a hanging lip, is deeply waved round the edge, and
behind it there is a long lilac spur.
Two petals stand erect, and form a hood which covers the stamens and the
slender column of the seed-vessel.
There are also three small lilac or white sepals which you will scarcely
be able to distinguish from the petals.
The flower sits at the top of what looks like a swollen stalk, but is
really the seed-vessel.
Where this stalk-like seed-vessel joins the main stem there is always a
tiny purple or green leaflet.
PLATE XXVII: 1. RED BERRIED BRYONY 2. CHICKWEED WINTERGREEN
3. CUCKOOPINT OR WAKE ROBIN