Spiranthes.

In the Dutch journal Blumea 6: p. 358, 1950, Backer, Van den Brink and Van Steenis record the results of their study of type material, lodged in the herbanum of the University at Uppsala, to support the new species described by Thunberg in the Florula Jaucanica in 1825.

They say of the descriptions— “they are too short and vague to allow a definite opinion, but the type speeLmens are well preserved and complete, so that nearly all the species can be very easily identified”.

One of these plants, Ophrys lancea, had already been described by Swartz in 1800. The type material— “clearly represents Spiranthes australis Ldl.

Thumberg's name, being validly published and supported by a genunine lectotype has priority under the Code and the species now becomes—

Sp. aestivalis (Lam.) Rich, to which it is closely related. The ecological differences between bogs in, say, Tibet and Java and Tasmania are quite pronounced, and it would be reasonable to expect plants growing in them to show some epharmonic variation. A comprehensive range of specimens from over the whole area does in fact show up apparently distinct local forms. But experiments with plants in cultivation over four seasons proves that these changes (largely vegetative) are related to the degree of heat and humidity prevailing in the late summer and autumn, when the new plants are developing, and can be intensified or retarded by regulating the environment. In the tropics the flowers open fully and are crosspollinated by insects. In south-eastern Australasia the flowers tend to become progressively self-fertile (eventually cleisgamic) and open only at the tip. The resulting narrow-tubular flower is superficially distinct, but by flowering the plants under glass it is possible to make the flowers open fully. The differences between the New Zealand and the tropical forms becomes immediately less obvious. (Incidentally the illustration in Trans. Roy. Soc. N.Z. ibid. t. 73. fig. 1-a, b, c represents a fully opened flower—artificially induced—such as will not be found in the field in New Zealand). The reduction of the rostellum and labellar calli, used by Schlechter (Bot. Zentrbl. Beih. 37: p. 350, 1920) to separate the Australasian subforms, is due in my opinion to degeneration following self-fertilisation as the species extends southwards into cooler regions. Thus we find the degenrate form in Tasmania, and in New Zealand to the south of the Egmont-Ruapehu line, while the normal form occurs in the North Auckland peninsula, the Australian mainland and New Caledonia.

Oakes Ames, discussing Sp. sinensis in 1908, lists no less than 17 primary synonyms and a further 17 secondary synonyms (recombinations of the originals). Since then another 6 synonyms have been added to the list, making 40 in all. This multiplicity of names and the diversity of opinion they represent is surely additional evidence of the extreme plasticity of the species.