THE ORCHIDS OF THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY. 567 



Section II. — Stachyobium. 



(a) Small plants with crowded ovoid pseud obulbs, flowers small, in 

 racemes. 



2. Dendrobium microbulbon, A. Rich., Fl. Br. Ind., V. 716 ; Dalz. 

 and Gibs., p. 261 ; D* crispum, Dalz. in Hook. Journ. Bot. IV., 

 p. 111. 



Pseudobulbs small, crowded, ovoid, covered with a network of fibres 

 formed by decaying leaves. Leaves quickly falling away, when present 

 one or two from the top of the pseudobulb, linear oblong acute, 2 to 

 3 inches long. Raceme erect, 1 to 2 inches long, with usually 4 to 8 

 flowers, bracts small, flowers about \ inch in diameter, sepals 

 and petals white, lip pink with dark red veins, midlobe crenulate, 

 suborbicular, lateral almost entire. 



Distribution. — A common small plant throughout the Ghats and Konkan, 

 growing on many species of trees and shrubs. Dalzell and Gibson say that it 

 flowers iu July and August. I have only found the flowers throughout the 

 cold weather from December to March. 



3. Dendrobium mabel/E, n. sp. 



Pseudobulbs small, tufted, two jointed, oval, \ inch long or as 

 much as four jointed and 1\ inch long, joints clothed with large equi- 

 tant papery scales which decay, leaving their nerves as a net work 

 of fibres. Leaves 2, terminal, caducous, linear oblong, 3 inches long, 

 moderately firm. Raceme half as long again as the leaves and 

 rising from between them ; flowers -h inch in diameter, semipatent, 

 reversed, 3 to 4 or more, terminal, peduncle slender, bracteate at base 

 and towards the middle, pedicels with short bracts, 4; inch long includ- 

 ing the ovary, sepals white, sub-falcate, upper narrower than the two 

 lateral which are produced at the base into a short, conical, incurved 

 spur, petals white, oblanceolate, equalling the upper sepal, lip yellowish- 

 green, with faint rose blotches and streaks, hinged on the extremity 

 of the column foot, compressed lunate in outline, slightly 3-lobed, 

 lateral lobes shallow, rounded, entire, terminal equalling half the whole 

 length of the lip, subquadrate, emarginate, margins crinite with two 

 rows of irregular, thick, white hairs, disk with a channelled ridge "which 

 is free and bilobed at the end, extending as far as the lateral lobes. 



A small plant locally common on the branches of trees and shrubs on the 

 Belgaum ghats and probably extending into Kanara. 



Flowers during the month of October. 



