Tas. 7044. 
SARCOCHILUS LUNIFERUS. 
Native of Burma. 
Nat. Ord. OncuipEm.—tTribe Vanpra. 
Genus Sarcocumiws, Br.; (Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. vol. iii. p. 575.) 
Sarcocuivs Juniferus ; acaulis, radicibus numerosissimis elongatis compressis, 
foliis rarissime evolutis, pedunculo rachi racemi et ovario hirtellis squamis 
paucis ovatis acutis instructo, racemo elongato decurvo multifloro, bracteis 
ovatis membranaceis, ovario brevi, sepalis petalisque consimilibus ellip- 
ticis obtusis flavis aurantiaco-maculatis, labello albo carnoso in caleem 
dorso obtusum producto, lobis lateralibus magnis erectis ovato-oblongis 
obtusis ; lobo medio minuto revoluto ovato, disco papilloso inter lobos 
laterales crasse bicarinato, anthera hemispherica 3-calcarata, calcaribus 
2 lateralibus setaceis antico breviore robustiore, polliniis 2 globosis stipite 
elongato lineari affixis. : 
S. luniferus, Benth. mss. 
Thrixspermum luniferum, Reichb. f. in Gard. Chron. 1868, p. 786. 
Sarcochilus, as reconstituted in the ** Genera Plantarum,” 
consists of a very difficult group of thirty or forty Indian, 
Malayan, Australian, and Pacific Island Orchids, differing 
greatly in habit, and out of which some eight or ten genera 
had been differentiated before a better knowledge of their 
characters, and the discovery of other species modifying the 
value of these characters, suggested the propriety of uniting 
all under one genus. for this genus Reichenbach 
proposed to adopt the name of Thrixspermum, Loureiro 
(1790), as being anterior to Sarcochilus, Blume (1810), 
a course which Bentham did not adopt in the “ Genera 
Plantarum,” on the very sufficient grounds that the name 
is utterly bad in construction, and because the description 
of the latter is so incomplete that it would have been 
impossible to have recognized the plant intended by it, 
but for a scrap preserved in Loureiro’s Herbarium 
preserved in the British Museum. On the other hand, 
Sarcochilus has been recognized by all authors for three- 
quarters of a century. Many species have been described 
under that generic name; and there is a well-known genus 
of Tiliacee, Trichospermum, Blume. 
Marcu 1st, 1889. 
