24 
CYMBIDIUM pendulum, var. brevilabre. 
Short-lipped thick-leaved Cymbidium. 
A 
GYNANDRIA MONANDRIA. 
Nat. ord. ORCHIDACER. $ VANDER. 
CYMBIDIUM. Botanical Register, vol. 7. fol. 529. 
C. pendulum (Swartz. nov. act. ups. 6. 73. Willd. Sp. pl. 4. 101. Roxb. 
Fl. Ind. 3.458. L. p. 165. Bot. Reg. 1840. t. 25. C. crassifolium, 
Wall. Cat. no. 7357.  Epidendrum pendulum, Woxb. corom. plants, 1. 
35. t. 44.) ; foliis ensiformibus distichis coriaceis obliqué obtusis, 
racemis pendulis multifloris, bracteis minutis, petalis sepalisque lineari- 
oblongis obtusis, labelli trilobi lobis lateralibus acutis intermedio oblongo 
apiculato: lamellis continuis approximatis apice confluentibus. 
Var. brevilabre ; labello latiore lobis lateralibus acutioribus intermedio sub- 
rotundo-oblongo. Bot. Reg. 1844. mise. 67. 
Having already figured this plant, it may perhaps be 
thought that the variety now given is too trifling to deserve a 
separate representation. We are however rather anxious to 
shew that when these Orchidaceous plants do run into ordinary 
varieties, it is only within recognizable limits, as happens in 
other plants, and that the masquerading dress under which 
such plants as Catasetum and Cycnoches occasionally appear, 
are not, as some suppose, to be taken as indications of a dis- 
position to vary, which throws suspicion upon all specific dis- 
tinctions in the order. 
As far as our experience goes, the ordinary variations to 
which Orchidacex are subject, are in all respects analogous 
to what is met with in other plants, and as is exemplified by 
the plant before us from Sincapore, in which, while the lip 
becomes shorter, broader, and with a much blunter middle 
lobe, every thing else remains so exactly the same, that nobody 
can entertain a doubt about the specific identity of the plant 
with Cymbidium pendulum. The vertical plates of the lip, 
in particular, are quite unchanged, shewing, as we find it 
always shewn, that the elevations and processes of the surface 
ofthelip are of the utmost importance in considering the 
limits of species. Eria bractescens and longilabris, published 
in the present number, t. 29, furnish the converse of the rule. 
They are much alike, and their labella vary in form in a 
manner not unlike that of C. pendulum and C. p. brevilabre ; 
May, 1844. L 
