34 
acuminate, and rise erect on either side of the column. The 
middle lobe has the edges reflexed, and rolled up so as to 
appear no larger than the sepals, although it is twice their 
size. Atthe base is a slightly elevated plate the length of 
the column and parailel to it. Column short-rounded on the 
upper side, but deeply hollowed beneath; thin, and of a 
silvery green at the edges, with a semicircular three-pointed 
depression in which the anther-case is contained. The latter 
is two-celled, roundish ovate. Pollen-masses four, two in 
each cell, ovate, deep yellow, with a reflexed and slightly bifid 
caudicula."— Wm. B. Booth. 
43. SPIRANTHES lobata. 
Lindley in Bot. Reg. 1844. misc. 9. 
* Among some plants received by Sir Charles Lemon, 
Bart., M.P., in the spring of 1842, from Mr. John Rule, of 
the Real del Monte Mines, Mexico, were two with long, 
thick, fleshy, fibrous roots, which shortly afterwards sent up 
leaves so much resembling the well-known Stenorhynchus 
speciosus as to have been mistaken for that plant, until on 
flowering, in December, 1843, they proved to be a very 
different thing; not so showy as Stenorhynchus, but more 
interesting to the botanist as furnishing an additional species 
to the genus Spiranthes. 
“* Leaves oblong lanceolate acute, spreading round the 
flower-stem which rises in the centre, slightly marked as if 
reticulated, but quite smooth, and of a rich green above, very 
glossy beneath ; varying from nine inches to a foot in length, 
and from two and a half to three inches in width ; somewhat 
undulated at the margin, and hollowed at the base so as to 
embrace the stem. Scape fifteen or eighteen inches high, 
quite round and hairy, terminating in a spike of about a 
dozen or more yellowish green flowers, with a thin mem- 
branous oblong lanceolate acuminate bract at the base of 
each, similar in form but much smaller and darker coloured 
than those which embrace the rest of the stem, and which 
are at first so closely imbricated as to give it something the 
appearance of a head of asparagus. Flowers curved, rather 
more than an inch and a half long ; the lower part dark 
green, grooved and densely pubescent. The upper segment 
is smooth, and of a dull yellowish green, hooked and arched 
