274 Transactions. — Botany. 



Leaves few; basal 2-3, green, erect, thickish, linear, very narrow, 

 5-6 inches long, less than 1 line wide, deeply channelled, 

 margins conniving, very acuminate, tips piliferous ; cauline 2, 

 nearly equidistant, similar to basal but smaller, adpressed to 

 stem, with large red-coloured membranaceous sheathing bracts 

 at base, acuminate. Flowers 3-5, small, dark-red, thickish, 

 rather distant, pedicelled in a short raceme at top of stem, the 

 bract at base of pedicel broad, sheathing, membranaceous, 

 ovate-acuminate, acute, 9-10 lines long, 3 lines broad, many 

 nerved, not keeled. Dorsal sepal very broad, sub-quinquan- 

 gulato-orbicular in outline, 5 liues long, 3£ lines broad, apex 

 slightly obtusely-angled with a fine mucro, sub-10-nerved, mar- 

 gins thin, entire, incurved ; lateral sepals very narrow, almost 

 wiry, erect and carved, 8-9 lines long, deeply channelled, tips 

 acute ; petals thin, white, narrow-huear above, broad and 

 spreading below, bifid at apex. Labellum heart-shaped, 4 liues 

 long, 3 lines broad, slightly and finely transversely wrinkled, 

 side margins incurved, tip acute ; lateral lobes sub-ovate, 

 obtuse, the middle lobe slightly larger, broadly-ovate-acuminate; 

 the transverse callus at the base of the lateral lobes smooth, 

 triangular, bifid at apex, and recurved towards column. Column, 

 tip apiculate, sides conniving, the two lateral appendages finely 

 subulate, rough. 



Hab. Open grounds among fern, high clayey hills between 

 Napier and Mohaka, Hawke's Bay ; 1870-76 : W.C. Glenross ; 

 1885 : Mr. D. P. Balfour (a single specimen only). 



Obs. This plant has been long known to me ; and, while I 

 had my doubts as to its being identical with the northern form 

 of this genus (0. solandri), mainly from the difference in colour, 

 in its being more slender, and its general appearance, I never 

 satisfied myself till this year ; partly owing to my want of 

 spcimens of the northern plant for comparison, as well as to my 

 not possessing any full description of it, neither of the Australian 

 species' (0. strictum) ; for R. Brown, Lindley, A. Cunningham, 

 and Sir J. D. Hooker, say very little about the two species. 

 More recently, however, Bentham, in his " Flora Australiensis," 

 has gone fully into the Australian plant ; and as now T I have 

 also A. Richard's full description of the New Zealand one, with 

 a folio plate of drawings and dissections, I have closely examined 

 and compared this species, and I find it to be (as I had sup- 

 posed) different, and that in several characters. Bentham, 

 however, states that the two long known plants of Australia and 

 New Zealand are but one species. His words are : " The New 

 Zealand plant does not appear to me to differ in the slightest 

 particular " (hoc. cit.). This may be the case with the old and 

 early described New Zealand one ; which, from description, 

 drawing, and dissections by A. Richard, is very distinct from 

 this species. 



