494 MR. H. ST. RIDLEY CXN" THE 



the following notes. The column is very short and footless, 

 longer, however, than in most Angrtsca. The base of the lip is 

 swollen and gibbous, forming a kind of pouch, the bottom of 

 which is perforated vertically by the spur, so that the entrance to 

 the spur is not placed close to the base of the column, but at 

 some distance below, and it seems that it is the portion of the 

 lip between the aperture and the base of the column which has 

 been taken for the foot of the column. The structure and 

 venation show clearly that it is a part of the lip. 



The genera Mystacidium and AEonia were formerly added by 

 Eeichenbach to Aeranthus, which, however, seems better confined 

 to the two original species, distinguished by the peculiar form 

 of the labellum alluded to above, the tailed perianth, and the 

 few-flowered slender peduncle rising from the lowest leaves. 



Aeranthus grandiflortjs, Lindley, Bot. Reg. t. 817; Gen. and 

 Sp. Orel. PI. p. 243 (pars). 



Madagascar, St. Marys, Forbesl in Herb. Lindley. Introduced 

 in a living state and cultivated at Kew, 1824. 



The only specimen that I have seen of this plant is a peduncle 

 with a single flower in the Lindley Herbarium, taken from the 

 plant introduced by Forbes. It is about 8f- inches in length, and 

 covered with 7 or more dry, long, striate acute sheathing-leaves, 

 each averaging two inches in length. Lindley, in the ' Genera 

 and Species of Orchidaceous Plants,' reduced it to A. Arachnites, 

 Lindley, from which it appears to be distinguished by the larger 

 size, shorter and broader undulate leaves, more numerous lax 

 sheaths on the peduncle exceeding the internodes and quite 

 covering the peduncle, and the paler yellow-green petals and 

 sepals and white lip. 



In Deans Cowan's spirit-collection,however, is a peduncle with a 

 flower which probably belongs to this species. The flower is about 

 as large as that of A. grandiflorus, but the tails of the petals and 

 sepals are much longer and the peduncle-sheaths much fewer, the 

 lip and petals shorter than the sepals, which are 3 inches long, of 

 which the tails form the greater length, 1\ inches. The lip is 1 

 inch in length and nearly | in the broadest part. The pedicel 

 has only one or two sheathing-leaves, which are rather long. The 

 rostellar lobes, probably the wings of the column in Lindley's 

 description, are small, acute, and deflexed, the stigma rather long 

 and oblong in shape. But Lindley's plant had "alis semi- 



