Feedback request: Spiranthes aestivalis (12857)

[Mike d'Apice]

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Specimen #330377

Taxon:	Orchidaceae: Spiranthes aestivalis (Poir.) Rich. ("Summer Lady's-tresses")
Filed in taxon folder:	Orchidaceae: Spiranthes aestivalis (Poir.) Rich. ("Summer Lady's-tresses")
Collected by:	George Jorden
Collection date:	1849
Locality:	Great Britain, VC37 Worcestershire, Wyre Forest, SO77, "Boggy spots"
ex herb:	Dr Frederick Arnold Lees Mr William Hadden Beeby
Institution:	South London Botanical Institute (SLBI)
Image:
fruits/flowers:	mature flowers
notes:	"I believe 1849 was the date but I am sorry to say I have lost Mr Jordan's origional label." F A L's note.

Inferred details are marked.

Documented by mikedaps on 4^th December 2011.

Edit history

date	user	change
22/03/2015	wonastow	Deleted collector: Dr Robert Coane Roberts Jordan
22/03/2015	wonastow	Added collector: George Jorden

N.B. reporting of the edit history is currently fairly unclear and misleading. Most edits made to specimens appear as a pair of 'add' and 'delete' entries, which may not be together in the list. There are also often 'minor' edits, which are made automatically (rather than due to user activity), for example to merge synonym names.

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User comments about this sheet

mikedaps wrote

The "Dr Robert Coane Roberts Jordan" on H@H seems the best bet for "Mr Jordan" given the 1847ish date and location. If other please advise/amend. Thanks.

[David Price]

V S Summerhayes in 'Wild Orchids of Britain' (1951) says "Apart from Jersey & Guernsey [this sp.] is known only from the New Forest in Hants". It is now extinct in mainland Britain.

Summerhayes continues "The species was thought to have been discovered in a bog in the Forest of Wyre in Worcestershire as long ago as 1854. A single specimen only was said to have been found, subsequent search .... failing to yield any further plants. Luckily the solitary specimen was preserved .... though it has remained overlooked for many years. Examination shows that the specimen is not a Spiranthes at all, but an abnormal individual of ..... Gymnadenia conopsea ....

The present specimen is therefore important. It seems not to be the specimen referred to by Summerhayes. It looks to me like a Spiranthes and, indeed, more like S. aestivalis than S. spiralis (see photographs in Summerhayes's book).

It is the only Jordan (sensu lato) plant among the Lees collection on H@H. There were several Jordans collecting in 1849 and a specimen of Sorbus domestica was gathered in 1849 [sic - but why? no date on label] in Wyre Forest by "Geo. Jordan", given to Miss Puckie who gave it to Langley Kitching.

This specimen warrants closer inspection.

[Mike d'Apice]

Thanks Dave, I've copied your notes and a link to the Help and Support section of the message board... if a significant sheet worth a closer inspection may be more noticeable there...? Md'A

[geoff toone]

Hi, if it's any help I recall a comment, I think from W.H. Purchas' Flora of Herefordshire, though I can't currently find it in the online text, taking issue with H.C. Watson about his acceptance of the Epipogium record versus his dismissal of the Spiranthes record(s). He cites the weight of evidence for the latter and, so far as I remember, explains the lack of specimens.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=a_AYAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=flora+of+herefordshire&cd=1#v=onepage&q=flora%20of%20herefordshire&f=false

[David Price]

Mike - thankyou. Someone from vc 37 Worcs should have a look at this. I notice that Mr Barnett has been absent from H@H for many months.

Geoff - you give link to vol. I Flora of Herefs which includes Epipogium without comment. A dispute with Watson seems more typical of E Newman in the Phytologist.

[geoff toone]

wonastow - You're right, it wasn't that. I meant Edwin Lees (1867) The Botany of Worcestershire

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tS-1AAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=botany+of+worcestershire&hl=en&sa=X&ei=bffxTojqOMn78QOJ0bnDAQ&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=botany%20of%20worcestershire&f=false

He makes several mentions of the sp :-
iv - 'The Epipogium aphyllum is admitted as a true native of the Mid-Severn sub-province on "good authority;" but the Spiranthes aestivalis wants a more reliable record," though the evidence for the appearance of the plants is really equally good in both cases to the unprejudiced mind...' and there's more

xci - 'Mr T.W. Gissing, now living at Wakefield... is a witness to the finding of Spiranthes aestivalis in Wyre Forest.'

19 - 'Mr George Jordan...was fortunate enough to meet with a single specimen of Spiranthes aestivalis on the margin of the great bog in Wyre Forest, in the summer of 1854, and I have seen the specimen gathered'

136 - A mention that 'no botanist would waste a doubt upon such plants as...Spiranthes aestivalis...truly wild in the forest'

144

G