H H
shire, and flowered at Chatsworth a year or two since ; having been collected by Mr. Gibson at
Chirra, on the Khoseea hills, at an elevation of 400 feet, growing on trees.
The following is the substance of Dr. Wallich’s description of the dried plant.
Roots tapering, thick, cylindrical, long, and smooth, as in Saccolabium guttatum. Stem short,
thick, compressed, entirely concealed by the sheathing bases of the leaves. Leaves close together,
arranged in two rows, linear, coriaceous, smooth, a foot and more long, obliquely one or two-toothed
at the point, generally rising upwards and curved to one side so as to assume a somewhat falcate
appearance, thick, slightly channelled, with a convex midrib on the under side; their sheaths are
short, compressed, and finely dotted with purple. Corymbs short-stalked, solitary or twin, each
consisting of from ten to sixteen flowers; with a very thick clavate peduncle an inch and half long,
erect or ascending, taper, spotted with purple. F lowers middle-sized, yellowish-green, most
elegantly sprinkled with roundish purple spots. Sepals spreading, distinct, fleshy and stiff, somewhat
obovate, obtuse, a little narrower at the base, about four lines long. . P etals rather narrower
and more round. Labellum large, bag-shaped, twice as large as the sepals, smooth ; obtuse at the
bottom, truncated and almost circular at the mouth, pale yellow; with a transverse plate, of a somewhat
^reniform figure, inserted horizontally in front, a little below the orifice of the labellum, snow-
white, yellow and spotted with purple in the middle, and bearded above with white hairs. Column
very short, conical. A nther ovate, short, obtuse, with two cells, themselves half divided into two
other cells, in front extended into a long double-toothed glandular process applied to the double-
toothed apex of the stigma. P ollen-masses two, globose, with a little excavation on one side,
attached to along slender caudicula.
Fig. 6. represents a single flower seen in front obliquely, and magnified.
VII, AERIDES DIFFORME.
Aerides difforme. WaUich in Genera fy Species of Orchidaceous Plants, p. 242.
Ornithochilus fuscus. WaUich mss.
This is one of the most singular flowers among the many strange forms peculiar to India, and in
some respects it possesses considerable beauty, though not of a high order.
It inhabits the branches of trees in Nepal, whence it was sent in March, 1818, to the Botanic
Garden, Calcutta, where it flowered in the following May. No specimen of it has fallen in my way,
but the Indian drawing made under Dr. Wallich’s superintendence sufficiently explains its structure,
especially when assisted by so detailed a description as the following, chiefly translated from Dr.
Wallich’s Latin manuscripts.
The plant has scarcely any stem, but consists of three or four very broad, oblong spreading
leaves, about six inches long by two and a half broad, of a thick fleshy consistence, a rather glaucous
colour; a very thin membranous margin, and an acute obliquely emarginate point. From the axils
of these leaves spring one or two stiff, erect, lax racemes, about as long as the leaves themselves;
their peduncles taper, dotted, and somewhat fleshy. The bracts are few, remote, lanceolate, small,
acute, adnate at the base. Flowers scattered, rather small, sweet-scented, yellowish, very slightly
tinged with green, and streaked with dull purple, forming an oblong raceme about the length of the
finger, seated upon slender pedicels about an inch in length, with a small membranous braetlet at the
base. Sepals and petals all turned towards the same side, spreading flat; of the former the lateral
are somewhat falcate, lanceolate, prominent on their Cuter margin, scarcely extended beyond the
column, adnate to the base of the lip; the latter are linear, shorter, obtuse. Labellum placed at
the back of the flower, and hanging down upon it, divided in the middle into two parts; of these
the lower (or hypochilium) is unguiculate, and extended in front into a long greenish yellow spur,
which curves upwards and is closed by numerous white hairs, while its margin, of a dull purple, is
curved inwards; the upper (or epichilium) is broad, kidney-shaped, retuse, slightly unguiculate, with
an intermediate point, dull purple, with a yellow border divided into fringe-like teeth, and an acute
•longitudinal crest through its centre. The column is erect, thick, purplish, very short, tapering
upwards into a narrow space, and extended downwards into a short foot. The stigma is large,
oblique, and extended into a large projection from the upper edge of the anther-bed. The anther
is oblique, obtuse, not crested, and extended in front into a truncated plate which covers over the
caudicula and gland. Pollen-masses two, round, hard, deeply two-lobed at the back, attached to
a long broad caudicula.—Note. The structure of this singular flower is so very intricate that it is
unusually difficult to describe it correctly. The lateral sepals are united below the slightly-extended
foot of the column, and together with the unguis of the hypochilium form a very short spur; while
the more conspicuous horn-like spur is really the apex of the same part.
Dr. WaUich named the plant Ornithochilus, or Bird-bill, in allusion to the appearance of the
column and anther, which together resemble very much a duck’s head ; I have however combined it
with Aerides, for the present at least.
Fig. 7. is a complete flower, about three times the natural size, copied from Dr. Wallich’s
drawing.
VIII. SITFTIPIA S0ARI08A.
Sunipia scariosa. Genera § Species of Orchidaceous Plants, p. 179.
Ornithidium bracteatum. WaUich mss.
This, the last subject in the wreath, was like all the others found by Dr. Wallich, who met with
it in May, 1818, growing upon the branches of trees at Toka in Nepal, where such epiphytes are
called Sunipiang, whence the name Sunipia was taken by Dr. Buchanan Hamilton; all those however
which were described from that traveller’s papers by the late Sir James Smith in Rees’s
Cyclopaedia, under the genus Stelis, appear to have belonged to the genus Bolbophyllum.
A .very long and minute Latin description of living specimens of this plant, by Dr. Wallich, is
before me, of which I avail myself in part: with such additions or corrections as the examination of
dried flowers in my herbarium renders necessary.
The shoots or rhizomata are as much as a foot long, and form an entangled mass held down to
the ground by numerous perpendicular roots, just as in our hardy species of Iris; from these spring in
abundance small inversely pear-shaped pseudo-bulbs, which are about an inch long, and terminated