Tas. 7120. 
HEMIORCHIS purmanica. 
Native of the Eastern Himalayas and Burma, 
Nat. Ord. Sciramine®.—Tribe ZINGIBERER. 
Genus Hemrorcuis, Kurz; (Benth. et Hook.f. Gen. Pl. vol. iii. p- 641.) 
Hemiorcuis burmanica ; rhizomate crasso tuberoso, caule foliifero post 
anthesin producto, foliis oblongis acutis in petiolum angustatis, floribus 
dense spicatis, pedunculo foliis bracteiformibus imbricatis ocenlto, bracteis 
parvis caducis, calycis segmentis ovatis tubo longioribus, corolla segmentis © 
lateralibus oblongis centrali ovato, staminodiis lateralibus o ovatis, 
labello orbiculari. 
H. burmanica, Kurz in Journ. Asiat, Soc. Bengal, vol. xlii. p. 108, tab. 8. 
For more than half a century Zingiberee have been little 
cultivated in Europe, and they are so difficult to study 
from dried specimens that our knowledge of the sub-order 
is now very little advanced beyond what it was in the days 
of Roscoe and Roxburgh. The curious plant here figured 
represents a genus of which at present only a single 
species is known. It was first described by Kurz in 1873, 
but there is a specimen in the Kew Herbarium which was 
gathered long before this, by Mr. Thos. Lobb, when he 
was collecting for Messrs. Veitch. For its introduction in 
a living state we are indebted to Mr. Gustay Mann, who 
sent it to Kew from Khasia in 1889. Our drawing is made 
from a plant that flowered at Kew last year. 
Drscr. footstock cylindrical, tuberous, white, naked. 
Leaves three to six, produced on a short special stem ; blade 
oblong, acute, membranous, plain green, very pale beneath, 
narrowed gradually into the channelled sheathing petiole. 
Flowers produced before the leaves in a short dense spike ; 
peduncle hidden by the imbricated membranous bract- 
leaves; bracts small, deciduous. Calyx reddish-brown ; 
segments ovate, longer than the campanulate tube. Corolla- 
tube shorter than the calyx; lateral segments oblong, 
upper ovate. Lateral stamimodia obovate, yellowish-white, 
about as long as the corolla-segments; labellum orbicular, 
JuNE Ist, 1890, 
