342 MR. G. BENTHAM ON" ORCHIDIA. 



Lindl., about six species, though distinct in the form of the la- 

 bellum and other slight characters, is yet very near to Altensteinia. 

 Cranichis, Swartz, has nearly twenty species, to the exclusion of C. 

 parvilabris, Lindl., which, according to our specimens, is a species 

 of Ponihieva. Cranichis, should, however, include Ocampna, 

 A. Eich., referred in herb. Lindl. to Prescottia ; but Lindley's 

 analysis shows all the characters of Cranichis, except that the 

 labellum is unguiculate. Prescottia, Lindl., is a well-marked genus 

 of about twenty species, and includes Decaisnea, Brongn., and 

 Galeoglossum, A. Eich. Wullschlcegelia, Beichb. f ., is remarkable 

 for the very slender leafless stems and minute flowers ; these are 

 allied in character to Cranichis, but with the lateral sepals united 

 at the base into a mentum shortly and obtusely prominent in the 

 type species, to which I would add as a second species Spruce's 

 n. 2847, from the Eio Uaupes in North Brazil, as W. calcarata, 

 with the diagnoses " perianthii mento longiuscule angusteque 

 calcariformi, calcar labelli includente." Pseudocentrum, Lindl., 

 three or four species, has the long spur-like mentum of Wull- 

 schlagelia calcarata, formed by the base of the lateral sepals ; but 

 the linear portion of the labellum inside is not a basal spur, but 

 the grooved linear lamina itself, only very shortly closed and in- 

 flected at the end. Gomphichis, Lindl., four or five species, was 

 at one time united by Eeichenbach with Stenoptera, but again 

 admitted by him as distinct (Xen. Orch. iii. 20). Stenoptera, 

 Presl, three species, should, however, include Porphyrostachys, 

 Eeichb. f. 



Neottia, Linn., is now generally limited to the two or three 

 European or North-Asiatic leafless species, of which N. Nidus-avis 

 is the type. Amongst them N. Lindleyana, Dene., appears to be 

 but a slight variety of N. lister oides, Lindl., and N niicrantha, 

 Lindl., is a very doubtful congener. It was only described from 

 a single specimen received by Lindley from Prescott labelled 

 as from Siberia, and was quite unknown to Ledebour and all 

 other writers on the Eussian flora. Listera, E. Br., has about 

 ten well-known species from Europe, temperate Asia, and North 

 America. Spiranthes, L. C. Eich., now comprises at least eighty 

 species, and extends over the tropical as well as the temperate 

 regions of both the New and the Old World. It had been pre- 

 viously indicated by Persoon as a section of Neottia rather than 

 as a genus under the name of Gyrostachys, and proposed as a 

 genus by Salisbury as Ibidium, but without any character, and by 



