minute, slender-pointed scales, shorter than the column, and 
not discoverable without disturbing the sepals. The column is 
dwarf, and terminated in part by two, long, curved horns. The — 
anther is a little round tid, beautifully studded with crystalline 
points. The Jip is one of the most extraordinary organs known 
even among Orchidaceous plants: it is a long, narrow, flexuose, — 
sharp-pointed body, closely covered with a yellow felt ; just 
within its point there is a deep-purple Jeard of exceedingly fine 
compact hairs; on the under side, at a little distance from the 
point of the lip, is another such deard; and besides these there 
is, at the end of the lip, a drush, consisting of very long purple 
threads, so excessively delicate, that the slightest disturbance of 
_ the air sets them in motion, when they wave gently to and fro, — 
like a tuft of threads cut from a spider’s web ; of the last-men- — 
tioned hairs some are of the same thickness throughout, others — 
terminate in an oblong club, so that when the hairs are waving — 
in the air (and I do not know that they are ever entirely at rest) 
apart floats along gracefully and slowly, while the others are 
impelled by the weight of the glandular extremities to a more 
rapid oscillation. Nor is this all; the lip itself, with its yellow. 
felt, its two beards, and its long purple brushes, is articulated 
with the column by such a very slight joint, that to breathe upon 
it is sufficient to produce a rocking movement, so conspicuous | 
and protracted, that one is really tempted to believe that there 
must be something of an animal nature infused into this most 
unplant-like production.” . 
i 
Sy ‘Fig. 1. Front view of a flower. 2. Side view of ditto. 3. Column, and minute 
petals. 4, Labellum, seen from above. 5. Club-shaped apex of the long 
of the lip :—all more or less magnified. : : te 
