268 Transactions. — Botany. 



of situation bring about change in characters as well as in 

 habit ? This plant is very plentiful in the locality named, 

 causing those dry woods and stony cliffs to look lovely in the 

 autumn season. It has given me a deal of repeated trouble aud 

 research, extending over several years, as for a long time I only 

 took it to be a variety of E. autumnalis. 



Genus 5. Gastrodia, Br. 

 1. G. leucopetala, sp. nov. 



Eoot a long sub-cylindrical greyish-flesh-coloured pubescent 

 tuber, encircled throughout with several rows or rings of scarious 

 long light-brown ovate-acuminate scales, the rows being pretty 

 regular and close together, of about 5 rows to 1 inch, somewhat 

 resembling the sheaths on the stem of some species of Equisetum. 

 Stem 2 ft. -2 ft. 9 in. high, erect, sub-succulent, stout, 8 lines 

 diameter and cylindrical below, sub-angular at top, smooth, 

 light-brown with short purplish stripes ; 8-9 bracts, perfoliate, 

 membranaceous, distant, on lower part of stem, margins entire, 

 dark purplish-brown, spotted with light-coloured spots much like 

 perianth. Fiowers 20-40 at top of stem in a raceme 10-15 

 inches long, pendulous, rather distant, scattered, pedicelled ; 

 pedicels 2^-4 lines long, each with a single sessile bracteole at 

 base 2-2^ lines long, 1 line broad, ovate-acuminate, sub-scarious, 

 reflexed, coloured like those of lower stem but darker. Perianth 

 thickish, papillose, dark brownish-green spotted with large light- 

 (sub-fawn-) coloured spots without, whitish within, ventricose 

 at base, anterior portion much curved upwards, 6-7 lines long 

 excluding ovary, mouth open, 4^ lines diameter, quinquefid ; 

 segments spreading, veined, veins branching at tips, margins 

 crenulate ; two lateral sepals largest, deltoid, sub-acute and re- 

 curved ; upper sepal oblong, obtuse and emarginate ; two lateral 

 petals pure white, adnate, projecting from just within perianth 

 tube, linear-oblong, concave, tips truncate and retuse, margins 

 thickened, slightly crenulate, and recurved ; labellum white, 3- 

 nerved, disc contracted below the middle, the anterior portion 

 sub-rhomboidal with two reddish longitudinal ridges, their mar- 

 gins thickly crenulato-fimbriate, rising divergent from the middle 

 and united towards tip, but not joined to it ; tip produced, 

 thickened, recurved, verrucose and dark-brown at apex ; anterior 

 margins of disc finely crenulate-waved and incurved, the middle 

 margins plain and spreading, posterior margins thickened, largely 

 raised, waved and incurved ; claw plain and grooved ; ovary 

 thick, ovoid, coloured as perianth, at first 3-4 lines long, after 

 flowering twice that size. 



Hab. In dark forests on the eastern slopes of the Euahine 

 mountain range, 1850-52 ; and in similar spots in the Seventy- 

 mile Bush, between Norsewood and Danneverke. County of 

 Waipawa, 1884-85 ; W.C. 



