298 ME. Q. BENTHAM Otf ORCHIDE^l. 



observed in Dendrobium ; and the genus has, as above mentioned, 

 a much wider geographical range. As now circumscribed, it is 

 somewhat polymorphous, and would include about a dozen small 

 or monotypic ones, proposed at various times by Lindley, Beichen- 

 bach, or others, but since more or less abandoned by the authors 

 themselves ; and Beichenbach would now add three or four more 

 which might yet be retained as separate with tolerably defiuite 

 characters ; whilst the seven series in which, for the ' Genera 

 Plantarum,' I have proposed to distribute such species as I would 

 regard as true Bulbophylla, being founded chiefly on inflores- 

 cence, often run too much one into the other to be considered as 

 distinct sections. 



Among the genera now united with Biilbopfiyllum, the follow- 

 ing are the most important: — 1. Sestochilus, Kubl and Van 

 Hasselt, being § 2 of Lindley's Sarcopodium, and including 

 B. Lobbii and a few others with their scapes bearing a single 

 large flower, and the teeth or brachia of the column less promi- 

 nent than usual. 2. Epicranthes, Blume, a single species with two- 

 flowered scapes, remarkable for several " antenna-like processes " 

 on each side of the column. I have only seen two loose flowers in 

 Parish's collection, which I could not dissect for examination ; 

 but these processes appeared to be lobed petals, and, if so, would 

 not alone be sufficient for generic distinction. The differences 

 in shape and size of the petals of Orchideae are, generally speak- 

 ing, of little more than specific value. 3. lone, Lindl., was 

 separated from Bulbophyllum, and transferred to Vandeae, as 

 having two distinct oval cartilaginous glands connecting the pairs 

 of the pollen-masses. I have not been able to examine the first 

 three of Lindley's species ; but in his I. paleacea (Bot. Mag. 

 t. 6344), and in the several small or narrow-leaved species, I find 

 the pollen-masses, when in the anther, quite those of ' Bulbophyllum, 

 and sometimes remaining free, though often connected after de- 

 hiscence by an elastically extensive viscum, which will more or 

 less dry up into one or two short laminae, variously described or 

 drawn by Lindley, Griffith, and others. I. paleacea has a peculiar 

 habit ; but the several narrow-leaved species are very difficult 

 to distinguish from the common B. reptans. 4. Bidactyle, Lindl., 

 including Xiphisusa, Eeichb. f., contained a few tropical-American 

 species with a small tooth on each side of the column below the 

 terminal brachia ; but these teeth are more or less observable in 

 several African species, and vary much from one species to another.' 



