64 PROFESSOR LINDLEY'S NOTE ON PSEUDOCENTRUM. 
spondent Professor Jameson, there is one possessing so very extra- 
ordinary a structure that it seems worthy of being brought sepa- 
rately under the notice of the Society, although nothing more is 
known of it than that it is a terrestrial plant from the valley of 
Lloa, a couple of spikes of flowers having alone reached me. 
These spikes are dense, erect, cylindrical, 10 inches long, and 
very slightly coated with minute distant hairs. A thin lanceolate 
three-veined bract supports each flower, reaching beyond the 
summit of the ovary. The flowers themselves are not unlike, in 
general appearance, those of a minute Aconitum lycoctonum, being 
furnished with what seems at first sight to be a slender curved 
galea many times longer than the limb; but upon dissection this 
galea proves to consist of the two lateral sepals excessively pro- 
duced at their base and forming a sheath, within which the labellum 
lies concealed. Thus far there is nothing in the structure to 
which a parallel may not be found elsewhere, as in Dendrobium, 
Bifrenaria, Comparettia, and especially in Pelexia, a genus to 
which the plant before us is nearly allied.. But when the labellum 
is examined, it is found to be extended within the fold of the 
lateral sepals, not in the form of a spur arising from its base, but 
in that of a long slendér channeled body proceeding from its 
point, the base of the labellum being acutely hastate. In other 
words, the labellum is sessile, hastate, 3-lobed, with the middle lobe 
extremely long, linear, channeled, and directed upwards between 
the sepals which conceal it. In this manner the appearance of a 
spur is produced without recourse being had to the arrangement 
which occurs in every other genus of this large order, hitherto 
described ; for which reason I propose the name PsEUDOCENTRUM, 
to which the following technical character may be added :— 
PssupocENTRUM (Genus Neottiearum Pelexie affine). Herba 
terrestris ;......... ` Spica elongata, densa, striata, cylindracea. 
Ovarium rectum. — Sepalum anticum parvum, lanceolatum, 
patens ; lateralia dorsalia, multo majora, triangularia, basi in 
canalem longum ascendentem arcuatum obtusum producta. Pe- 
fala lineari-lanceolata, apice recurva, sepalo antico breviora. 
Labellum membranaceum, sessile, trilobum; lobis lateralibus 
acutis hastam referentibus, intermedio lineari, canaliculato, 
intra canalem sepalinum incluso eique squali. Columna nana, 
semiteres; stigmate depresso marginato, rostello acuminato. 
Anthera dorsalis apiculata, bilocularis (P) ; pollinia 4, pulverea, 
lateralia majora glandula parva oblonga. 
Sp, 1. Pseudocentrum macrostachyum. Peru, Jameson. 
гахай 
