568 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XVI. 



{b) Large plants with long, cylindrical, leafy stems, flowers larger 

 and more numerous in the racemes. 



4. Dendrobium chlorops, Lindl,, Fl. Br. Ind., V. 719 ; Dalz. 

 and Gibs., p. 261. 



Stems up to 18 inches long, usually rather slender, leaves on first 

 year's shoots, oblong lanceolate, up to 4 inches long, second year's 

 shoots leafless and flower bearing. Racemes lateral and terminal, many 

 flowered, bracts small, flowers greenish-yellow, about f inches long, 

 sepals oblong, petals obvate, spur short, incurved, Up flat, side lobes 

 moderately small, rounded, midlobe subquadrate, disk with a channelled 

 ridge between the lateral lobes and with a hairy surface as far as the 

 centre of the midlobe. 



Distribution. — Throughout the Ghats and the Konkan towards the south. 

 Flowers appear in the cold season. 



Plate 1. Fig. 1. Plant with leaves. Fig. 2. Upper part of 

 flowering plant. Fig. 3. Lip enlarged. 

 [1. Dendrobium chlorops, Lindl. — 



This plant has no native name in the Konkans. But on the Malabar Coast 

 it is called Maravar. Neither Graham nor Nimmo seem to have found it in 

 the Konkans, but Dalzell and Gibson describe it in their Bombay Flora. Mr. 

 H. M. Birdwood has found it at Matheran. In the Thana District I have 

 found it growing on branches of mango trees in the rainy season. Dalzell and 

 Gibson say that the plant flowers in the cold weather, they- give its synonym 

 thus : — " D. Heymanum, Wight J c . 909 ? " The query is Dalzell and Gibson's 

 own. In a manuscript pencil note General Julius Hobson, in his interleaved 

 copy of Dalzell and Gibson's Bombay Flora now in my possession, says in reply 

 to the query :— " No, I think not. " General Hobson's remark is made from 

 personal observation. He, as Major Hobson, was for a long time employed in 

 the Survey Department in the Bombay Presidency in the early sixties of the last 

 century. He was a keen botanist, and a careful collector and preserver of plants. 

 His sketches of plants or parts of plants wherever made in his interleaved copy 

 of D. and G.'s Bombay Flora are accurate, original and from nature. Dr. 

 Dalgado says that it is very common in Savantwadi and Goa. It grows in 

 cool places. 



Williams describes it as a " very pretty flowering species producing pale 

 uankin flowers having the base of the lip of a bright pea-green. The flowers 

 last a considerable time in bloom." (Orchid-Growers' Manual, p. 329. Ed. 

 seventh, 1894.) I may add that the meaning of Nankin colour or Nankeen colour 

 in dyeing, is the shade of buff obtained from iron salts. As seen by me, in 

 Thana, the petals of the flowers are sometimes cream-coloured. When fresh 

 they have an evanescent slight smell of the English Primrose of Beacons- 

 field fame. 



