Tas. 6637. 
PONTHIEVA macunata. 
Native of Venezuela. 
Nat. Ord. OxcH1pEZ.—Tribe NEoTTIER. 
Genus Ponraigva, Br.; (Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Pl. vol. iii. p. 593, ined.) 
PonTHIEVA maculata; pilis patentibus elongatis laxe villosa, foliis sessilibus v. 
in petiolum angustatis lineari-oblongis acuminatis, scapo valido, spica multiflora, 
bracteis ovato-oblongis lanceolatisve, floribus horizontalibus, ovario bracteis 
2-3-plo longioribus hirsutis, sepalo dorsali anguste ovato-lanceolato, lateralibus 
duplo majoribus erecto patentibus late ellipticis albis brunneo maculatis longe 
ciliatis, petalis parvis ab apice columne gracilis pendulis dimidiato-ovatis 
unguiculatis parallelis marginibus rectis contiguis, labello minuto excavato. 
P. maculata, Lindl. in Ann. Nat. Hist, vol. xv. p. 385; The Gardeners’ Maga- 
zine, vol. i. (1850) p. 248; WV. H. Brown in Gard. Chron. 1882, p. 496. 
ScHonLernia benigna, Klotzsch MSS, 
This is, so far as can be determined by Herbarium speci- 
mens and the few species that have already flowered in 
this country, the handsomest except one of the curious 
genus of terrestrial Orchids to which it belongs, all but 
that one of the others (a fewer, but much larger flowered 
species found by Jamieson in the Quitenian Andes) being 
in comparison insignificant plants. The genus itself was 
founded by R. Brown in the second edition of Hortus 
Kewensis (vol. v. p. 199), upon a West Indian plant 
figured nearly eighty years ago in this work as Neoittia 
glandulosa (Plate 842), since which nearly twenty species 
have been added to the genus, natives chiefly of Venezuela 
and the United States of Colombia. P. maculata is not 
new to cultivation, for a reduced woodcut figure of it-was 
published upwards of thirty years ago in the “ Gardeners’ 
Magazine” (cited above), where, however, it is not stated 
how it was introduced, nor when it flowered. 
Mr. N. E. Brown, in an excellent description which he 
has given of the plant in the “ Gardeners’ Chronicle,” 
observes that from the centre of each of the spots on the 
JULY lst, 1882, 
