is known as one of the most successful cultivators of this, one of the most interesting tribes among
monocotyledonous plants, but of whose urbanity and condescension I have personally experienced
numerous proofs since my return to Europe/’
That it is a Galeandra there is no doubt ; but it renders it necessary to modify the essential
character of that genus, concerning whose true marks of distinction the present is a favourable
opportunity for making a few observations.
When Galeandra was first proposed I had imagined that the original species, G. Baueri, might
be combined with the Eulophia gracilis of the Botanical Register, and a third Sierra Leone plant,
by the funnel-shaped undivided lip, the crested anther, and the peculiar form of the gland to which
the pollen-masses are attached. But while experience shews that these, characters are in fact essential
to the genus Galeandra, it also teaches us that they are also in part unimportant, and that it is
requisite for them to be combined with other peculiarities in order to constitute a really good
genus. Of the characters to be rejected the crested anther is the principal ; of those to be added,
the presence of four parallel plates upon the lip, and a terminal inflorescence, appear essential.
The Eulophia gracilis will in that case be excluded from the genus Galeandra, and so perhaps will
G. extinctoria, both which require further examination in order to determine whether or not they are
to be stationed definitively in the genus Eulophia.
With regard to that genus, Zygopetalura, and some others nearly allied to Galeandra, they
involve some very difficult enquiry, for which sufficient materials have hardly been as yet
accumulated.
To the genus Galeandra, in its restricted sense, I have one species to add ; a grassy plant about
two feet high, with long narrow leaves, small pink flowers, and tubers in size and form resembling
the cormi of a Crocus. Mr. Schomburgk found it in ,abundance in the Savannahs, adjacent to the
River Berbice ; and Dr. von Martius met with it in Brazil, in fields near Almeirim in the Province
of Para. It may be distinguished thus :
G. juncea ; tuberosa, caule stricto paucifolio, foliis linearibus acuminatis trinerviis longé vagi-
nantibus, racemo erecto multifloro, labelli laminâ denticulatâ obsoletè trilobâ rotundatâ lamellis
4 pone basin contiguis juxta medium incurvis exinde in tribus serrulatis confluentibus.