13 



* GOVENIA liliacea 



Lily-jiowered Govenia. 



GYNANDRIA MONANDRIA 



Nat. ord. Orchidace^, § Vande^. 



G VENIA . Bot. Reg. vol. 2 1 . fol. 1 795 



I ■ 



G. liliacea ; labello ovato basi ima cucuUato, spica oblonga, scapo univaglnato, 

 bracteis oblongis cucullatis, folils obovato-lanceolatis plicatls radicalibus 

 scapo brevioribus, radice tuberosa. 



G. liliacea. Bot. Reg. 21. fol. 1795 in textu. 



Maxillaria liliacea. La Llave et Lexarza nov. veg. descr. 12. 



A small tuberous plant, with a stem about a foot high, 

 imported from Mexico by George Barker, Esq. of Birming- 

 ham, along with a great quantity of still more interesting 

 plants and seeds of all descriptions. It is an Orchidaceous 

 plant, with the habits of a Bletia, flowering in the month of 

 July. Its flower-stem is hardly above a foot high, and 



directly from the tuber, to about the length of the plaited 



leaves. The colour of the flowers is not a good or pure white 

 but they are delicately streaked upon the petals with lines of 

 rather pale purple. 



From G. superba it differs not only in colour, but in the 

 form of the labellum, which is not at all cordate, or chan- 

 nelled along the middle. 



The first notice we have of the existence of this^ species 

 is from Hernandez who, in the Madrid edition of his work, 

 calls it by the many-syllabled name of " Iztactepetzacuxo- 

 chitl Icohueyo." It was many years afterwards described 

 and named more scientifically by Paul de la Llave and John 



I 



* See Bot. Register, vol. 21. fol. 1795 



