Tas. 5968. 
DEN DROBIUM amernystoatossum. 
Native of the Philippine Islands. 
' Nat. Ord. Orcurpacem.—Tribe, MaLaxipex § DENDROBIER. 
Genus, Denprosium, Swartz } (Lindl. Gen. et Sp. Orchid., p. 74). 
Denprosium (Pedilonum) amethystoglossum; caulibus fasciculatis strictis 
erectis elongatis cylindraceis, foliis?, racemis alternis breviter pedun- 
culatis pendulis oblongis dense multifloris, floribus imbricatis, bracteis 
minutis, sepalis petalisque consimilibus late obovato-oblongis acutis 
eburneis, sepalis lateralibus basi connatis postice in calear rectum 
validum obtusum ovario longiore productis, labello oblongato anguste 
Spathulato cymbiformi abrupte apiculato lete purpureo marginibus 
lateralibus incurvis, basin versus supra unguem callo triangulari retrorso 
aucto, column brevis auriculis obscuris erectis 2-dentatis. 
Deyprosivy amethystoglossum, Reichb. f. in Gard. Chron. 1872, p. 109. 
This remarkable Dendrobe presents the contrast of great 
beauty of inflorescence and flower, with a singularly ugly 
habit of growth. On the one hand, nothing can well be 
uglier than the thick, clumsy, slightly flexuous, naked stems, 
two to three feet long, that stick straight up from the tree- 
_ trunk it inhabits, and which further present, after flowering, 
the persistent naked remains of the old racemes, projecting 
right and left from the internodes; on the other, it is difficult 
to describe the ivory-whiteness of the sepals and petals, and 
the lucidity of the amethystine purple on the lip. 
D. amethystoglossum is a native of the Philippine Islands, 
whence it was imported by Messrs. Veitch, through their 
collector, G. Wallis, amongst a lot of D. taurinum ; it flowered 
in February last, presenting three racemes on the stem at once. 
Descr. Stems fascicled, two to three feet high, stout, one 
inch in diameter, slightly flexuous, dirty green, obscurely 
channelled, tapering to the apex ; internodes about two inches 
long, clothed with appressed deciduous sheaths, Leaves not 
MAY Isr, 1872. 
