ragged line interposed on each side of the column between the upper and lateral sepals, as is shewn
in the accompanying figure, No. 1; but I have not been able to make out this fact in the few and
bad dried flowers brought under examination.
The plant has quite the habit of a large Bolbophyllum. From a large creeping scaly rhizoma
spring at considerable intervals ovate pseudo-bulbs, at first covered with the ragged remains of the
scales out of which they originally proceeded; each is about two inches long, and bears a single
leaf. The leaves are rather less than a foot long, oblong, leathery, deep green, veinless, obtuse, a
little downy beneath, with the channelled footstalk nearly as long as the blade. The raceme is
rather shorter than the leaf, erect, proceeding from the base of a pseudo-bulb, pale green spotted with
dull purple, with about two sheathing scales below the origin of the first flowers. Each blower
when fully expanded is about an inch long, with the lip and upper sepal placed transversely with
respect to the axis of growth. Of the sepals the upper is triangular, acuminate, nearly plain, dull olive
green, much shorter than the two lateral ones, which are placed below the lip, a little united with
each other at the base, where they are fixed upon the long foot of the column in such a way as to
form a kind of blunt spur ; on the outside they are very light green, smooth and; dotted with light
purple ; on the inside they are hairy, yellowish, and irregularly spotted with bright purple. The
petals appear to me to be wholly absent; but in Dr. Wallich’s figure they are represented as two
ragged lines. The labellum is articulated with a very long foot of the column, horizontal, dull
yellow, three-lobed, the lateral lobes being falcate and emarginate, the intermediate one ovate, with
four continuous acute plates, united into pairs, parallel with its margin. The column is short, half
round, extended at the base into a long slender curved foot, on which the sepals and labellum are
inserted; with the two upper angles in front produced into short points. The anther is downy,
one-celled, with a fleshy even crest. The pollen-masses are four, on the same plane, the two
interior being the smallest, and all consolidated into a roundish oval ball, without the ^lightest trace
of a caudicula or gland.
Fig. 1. of the above dissections represents a flower of this plant much magnified, with the back
sepal cut off.
II. SAOCOLABIUM ACUTIFOLIITM,
Saccolabium acutifolium. Genera % Species of Orchidaceous Plants, p. 223.
Aerides umbellatum. WaTlich mss.
A pretty epiphyte inhabiting the East Indies, and at present known only from a drawing in the
possession of the East India Company, of which, with all the others forming the wreath before us,
I have been permitted to take copies.
Its stems are about six inches long, and are covered by numerous leaves, so disposed as to
arrange themselves in two rows. Each leaf is rather, more than six inches long, sessile, slightly
amplexicaul, oblong-lanceolate, very acute, quite flat and even, and apparently fleshy. The flowers
appear in small corymbs, placed on stiff peduncles, from two to three inches long, and springing
from the stem on the side opposite a leaf; they are about three-quarters of an inch in diameter.
The sepals and petals are obovate, acute, spreading, yellow, and nearly of equal size. The
labellum is pale pink, concave at the base, where it has a rounded lobe on each side, and flat
beyond the lobes, enlarging into a somewhat triangular three-lobed fringed plate.
Fig. 2. represents the column and lip of this plant, copied from the drawing above mentioned.
III. VANDA CKISTATA,
Vanda cristata. Genera 8$ Species of Orchidaceous Plants, p. 216.
This species has very much the manner of gi’owth and appearance of Saccolabium guttatum,
but its flowers are totally different. Dr. Wallich found it in March, 1818,' growing upon trees in
Nepal; he also obtained it in April at Toka, near Sheopore, on which occasion it was described in
his manuscripts with the following addition, “ Flos exquisitse pulchi’itudinis. Labelli consistentia
crassissima, color atropurpureus praecipufe intus ubi eti&m holosericeus.” The following is the
translation of the more essential parts of the description referred to.
The shoots are about as thick as the little finger, nearly simple, emitting from the sides near
the base thick taper fleshy fibres, adhering to the bark of trees like Vanda tessellata, to which plant
it bears much resemblance in habit and leaves. The leaves are stiff, spreading, two-ranked, imbricating
each other alternately at the base, shining, channelled, keeled on the under side, very sharp
edged, from five to six inches long, and one-third of an inch wide, truncated and obliquely threetoothed
at the ends. The racemes are axillary, generally three or four on the same shoot, scarcely
long as the leaves, and bearing but few flowers ; (in the figure-and specimens before me the peduncles
are three-flowered). The peduncles are fleshy, taper, two or three inches long, having at the
base a few truncated bracts, together with one broad ovate acute membranous one beneath each
pedicel. Flowers large, fleshy, yellowish green, with a very large pux'ple lip. Sepals fleshy,
lanceolate, spreading, rather obtuse, about half an inch long, nearly distinct; the lateral ones
extended a little beyond the origin of the labellum, and adherent to the slightly extended base of
the column. P etals nearly linear. Labellum very thick, saccate at the base, and extended into
a very short broad sharpish horn, adhering to the fleshy base of the column ; with an ovate, obtuse,
erect lobe on each side ; upwards extended into an oblong blade, which terminates below the point
in a solid short horn, and has above a crest or transverse border running into three or four iri-egular
cylindrical processes; on the whole of the upper surface it is covered with warted lines; (on the
outside it is white; inside it is strongly streaked with purple broken lines); Column very short,
thick, Conical. A nther terminal, rounded, with two remote distinct cells. Pollen-masses two,
globose, two-lobed at the back, (with a short elastic caudicula, and a very large rounded glands)
Ovary with six, keeled, projecting angles.
Fig. 3. represents the column and labellum, from a drawing belonging to the East India
Company.
Frontispiece. ' ’ p i A- . a 2