case if proved, but considering the difficulty of identifying 
orchids from herbarium specimens, and the very scanty 
materials at the great orchidologists’ disposal fifty years 
and more ago, it appeared to me that so remarkable a 
statement required confirmation, and I have therefore 
carefully investigated the subject with the aid of the more 
numerous and better specimens now accessible at, Kew, 
with the result, that if not wholly reliable, Lindley’s con- 
clusion was so in the main. 
Of the Mauritian CO. Thouarsii, Lindley had to depend 
solely on the plate in Thouars’ work, and for the supposed 
Javan plant he no doubt relied on a meagre description, 
for a copy by Lindley of a drawing by Reinwardt himself 
of his Zyloglossum wmbellatum, which I find in Lindley’s 
Herbarium (and which was no doubt obtained after he had 
referred the species to 0. Thouarsit), shows that it is a very 
different species, with a broadly elliptic leaf, obtuse lateral 
sepals, and no awn to the dorsal sepal, while the petals are 
quite glabrous ; further it ig a native of the Celebes, not of 
Java. With regard to the Philippine plant, which was 
afterwards published as C. Thouarsii in both this Magazine 
and in the Botanical Register, it differs from the Mauritian 
in the numerous flowers, the dorsal sepal is smaller and 
narrower, the petals are sharply serrate, not fringed with 
long hairs, and the arms of the column are much shorter. 
The Society Island plant remains. I have examined speci- 
mens of it from the Tahiti, the Fiji, and Society Islands and 
fail to find any difference between them and the Mauritian. 
Thus confirming Dr. Lindley’s statement in the main, 
though not in detail, I have only to add that the colour of 
the flower varies in both the Mauritius and Pacific Islands 
specimens from yellow to a reddish brown. 
C. Thouarsii was sent to the Royal Gardens by Mr. E. E. 
Bewsher, of the New Oriental Bank Corporation, Mauritius, 
a gentleman who has taken up the study of the Botany of 
the Island, and will no doubt by diligent exploration add 
much of interest to its flora; it flowered in the Royal 
Gardens in July, 1891,—J. D. H 
ee le ee 
ith all but the bases of the lat. 
er; 5, pollinia :—aJ] enlarged, 
Fig. 1, Flower, w 
; -2, lip; 
3, column; 4, anth eral sepals removed Pp 
