Addisonia 71 



(Plate 156) 



BULBOPHYLLUM GRANDIFLORUM 

 Large-flowered Bulbophyllum 



Native of New Guinea 



Family Orchidaceab Orchid Family 



Bulbophyllum grandiflorum Blume, Rumphia 4: 42. 1848. 



An epiphytic plant with creeping stems, one-leaved pseudo- 

 bulbs, and a scape bearing a single large brownish flower. The 

 pseudobulbs are prismatic, one to two inches long, narrowed up- 

 ward, and are an inch or so distant on the stem. The leaf is oblong- 

 elliptic, erect, up to ten inches long and one to two inches wide, 

 with the apex obtuse or sometimes retuse, and narrowed at the 

 base into a short stalk ; it is of firm texture and shining. The scape, 

 eight inches or a foot long, arises from the base of the pseudobulb, 

 has usually two or three bracts, the upper one sheathing the flower- 

 stalk, and bears on a curved stalk a large flower. The dorsal sepal, 

 measuring four to five inches long and about two inches wide, is of a 

 peculiar light greenish brown with a number of lighter spots between 

 the nerves, chiefly on the lower part; it is oblong-ovate, obtuse, 

 sickle-shaped, with the sides reflexed, and keeled on the back. 

 The lateral sepals are linear-oblong, three and a half to four inches 

 long and three fourths of an inch wide, lighter in color than the 

 dorsal sepal and not spotted, and are deflexed and incurved. The 

 light green petals are very small, about an eighth of an inch long, 

 triangular, and acute. The three-lobed lip, whitish or pale green, 

 is about a quarter of an inch long, laterally compressed in front but 

 broader behind, the margins of the lateral lobes ciliate ; it is attached 

 underneath about the middle to the foot of the column, and is so 

 delicately balanced that it trembles at the least touch ; the terminal 

 lobe is tongue-shaped, the upper surface being deeply grooved, the 

 sides spotted with red. The column is short and stout. The 

 anther is yellow and brown. The pollinia are four. 



This is the largest member of the genus, and its right to this 

 distinction is indicated by the specific name. It was discovered in 

 New Guinea in 1828 by Zippel, a naturalist who accompanied an 

 expedition commissioned by the Dutch government to establish a 

 civil and military settlement in that archipelago. A peculiarity of 

 this genus is the small size of the petals and lip as compared with 

 the sepals, but in no other species is the contrast in this respect so 

 great as in this, the exaggerated size of the sepals and the diminutive 

 petals and lip being remarkable. For many years after its dis- 

 covery it was known only in a wild state, but finally a specimen, 



