308 MR. G. BENTHAM ON OECHIDE^. 



usually tall terrestrial herbs, with plicate leaves, no pseudobulbs 

 aud eight pollen-masses. 



Coelogyne, as defined by Lindley in some of his latest works, is 

 a natural genus of about 50 species from tbe Indo-Malayan 

 region. His three sections, Neogyne, Pleione, and Coelogyne 

 proper, have been regarded by some as distinct genera ; and of 

 these Pleione, Don, is kept up by such in most horticultural 

 publications, for, as far as is shown by the species in cultivation, 

 it is easily recognized by its handsome flowers solitary on the 

 stems or pseudobulbs, which, as in other sections of Coelogyne, are 

 sometimes leafless at the time of flowering. But there are a few 

 species of Coelogyne proper in which the raceme is reduced to 

 two flowers or to a single one, and all other characters assigned 

 break down in one or more species of one or the other group. 

 Otochilus, Lindl. (including Tetrapeltis, Wall.), containing three 

 or four species, is reduced by Eeichenbach to a section of 

 Otochilus, to which it is certainly closely allied ; but the marked 

 difference in vegetation, which alone might not have been a 

 sufficient generic distinction, is here accompanied by the small 

 racemose flowers and differences in the labellum which may 

 justify the separation. Pholidota, Lindl., about 20 species from 

 the same region, is also reduced by Eeichenbach to a section of 

 Coelogyne; but here, besides the smallflowers and the inflorescence, 

 we have a well-marked character in the shortness of the column. 

 The genus is divisible into two sections by the vegetative cha- 

 racters which separate Otochilus from Coelogyne, but by no other. 

 In the one the new shoots proceed from the rhizome at the base 

 of the previous year's pseudobulb, as in Coelogyne ; in the other, 

 as in Otochilus, the new shoots are formed near the apex of the 

 previous year's growth, giving the older stems a jointed appear- 

 ance, as if formed by a succession of pseudobulbs. In Blume's 

 ' Bijdragen,' Pholidota and Coelogyne formed sections of his genus 

 Chelonanthera. 



Calanthe, Lindl., including Centrosis, Thou., Ambly glottis, 

 Blume, Styloglossum, v. Breda, Ghiesbreglitia, A. Eich., and 

 Preptanthe, Eeichb. f., is a genus of about 40 species, chiefly from 

 the Indo-Malayan region, but extending also to the South-Pacific 

 islands and to tropical and South-eastern Africa, and represented 

 by two or three species from Central America and the West 

 Indies. It has usually been placed in Vandeae, because the 

 viscum which after dehiscence connects the points or caudicles 



