MB. G. BENTHAM ON OECHIDEiE. 311 



five species ; all three genera remarkable for their vegetative 

 character and peculiar habit, arising from each year's shoot or 

 narrow pseudobulb proceeding from near the end of that of the 

 preceding year. In Ilexisia the column and labellum are united 

 at the base, as in the preceding genera, and there are four 

 collateral pollen-masses ; in Scaphyglottis the pollen-masses are 

 likewise four, but the labellum is free from the column ; and in 

 Hexadesmia the labellum is again free, but in the anthers, besides 

 the four collateral pollen-masses, there is a second upper series of 

 two, one in each cell. To the above nine genera I would add as 

 a new one, under the name of Octadesmia, the Octomcria serra- 

 tifolia, Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 2823, transferred by Grisebach to 

 Tetramicra, and by Reichenbach to Bletia, from all of which 

 genera it appears to me to be much further removed than from 

 Hexadesmia. The habit is that of some species of Epidendrum ; 

 the anthers are those of Hexadesmia, except that both series of 

 pollen-masses are complete in number, eight in all. 



Subtribe 9. L^EUEiE. — The chief characters of the Ladiea?, or 

 Epidendrea? proper, reside in the pollen-masses, four in one 

 series or eight in two series, those of each series laterally com- 

 pressed, collateral and parallel, connected by a pollinary appendage 

 in the form of two linear lamina?, often uniting into one, and 

 ascending from the base of the lower or single series along their 

 outer edge ; the upper series, when present, desceuding from the 

 upper end of the lamina, and often smaller than the lower series, 

 never ascending like the lower series, as occurs in Bletiea?. The 

 inflorescence is almost always terminal. The genera are all exclu- 

 sively American, tropical or subtropical, and the habit usually, if 

 not always, epiphytical and frequently pseudobulbous. 



I have included sixteen genera in the subtribe, for which I 

 have taken Lindley's name, as having been applied by him to a 

 group almost identical ; but of these sixteen, two are somewhat 

 doubtful. Alamania, Llave and Lex., a single Mexican species, 

 is only known to me from a specimen of Hartweg's in Lindley's 

 herbarium, which he had referred to Llave and Lexarsa's genus, 

 but which scarcely corresponds with their character. Lindley 

 associated it with Epidendrum, probably ou account of the form 

 of the perianth; and from the original character we should suppose 

 the inflorescence to be terminal ; but in Hartweg's specimen the 

 short raceme is on a leafless scape from the base of the bifoliate 

 pseudobulb, and the characteristic pollinary appendage of Ladiere 



Llinr. JOTJEN. — BOTANY, VOL. XVIU. 2 A 



