THE MAN ORCHIS IN ESSEX 193
THE MAN ORCHIS IN ESSEX
BY BERNARD T. WARD
THIS orchis (Aceras anthropophorum (L.) S. F. Gray) was
found in small numbers during a field meeting in 1948 in
one locality in Essex (v.-c. l8).
The unexpected meeting with a rare Essex plant was full of
significance which was not fully understood at the time. The
find caused some references to the published works on the species
and some enquiries concerning the distribution generally and in
particular in Essex.
In an interesting and comprehensive paper on the distribution
in The Report of the Botanical Exchange Club of the British Isles,
Vol. X, Part III 1934, pp. 670-81, Patrick M. Hall and W. H.
Pearsall discuss the species of Himantoglossum and Aceras. From
the opinions expressed by them it seems that Aceras anthropopho-
rum may be regarded as a declining species and, whilst some
colonies of the orchis are still abundant in individuals, it is
decreasing and has disappeared from a large number of its
localities. This is especially true in the eastern counties where the
cause is attributed to the great increase in arable farming in the
early years of the nineteenth century. They also draw a com-
parison between the topographical differences of the chalk areas
of the eastern counties and those of Kent and Surrey. The steep
slopes of the North Downs provide suitable sites in which Aceras
can maintain and even extend its range whilst the more gentle
slopes of the chalk area of East Anglia, which have a greater
depth of overlying soil, have been converted to arable with the
consequent loss of the plant.
The authors proceed to enumerate the known records of the
plant and the two vice-counties into which Essex is divided
(North nineteen and South eighteen) are dealt with under separate
headings, viz. :
1. PAST HISTORY AND PRESENT CIRCUMSTANCES OF
THE SPECIES:
north essex (19). The first record is also the first record for
Britain—Dallington (—Ballingdon), Ray, Syn., 1690, 171: there
are specimens from this locality dated 1715 in Herb. Samuel Dale
(1659-1739) in Herb. Mus. Brit. : there are also specimens in the
same herbarium from Belchamp St. Paul and Walter Belchamp.
There is only one recent record, Terling, near Witham, 1909, E. E.
Turner in Herb. Druce. It is doubtful whether the plant still
exists in v.-c. 19.
2. EXTINCTIONS :
south essex (18). This v.-c. appears in Top. Bot. without personal
authority and is also given in Com. Fl. The only record we have
been able to trace is in Gibson's Flora of Essex, 1862, "South
Shoebury Common, 1835 F." There is a sheet in Herb. Mus.