23 



* CRYPTOCHlLUS sanguinea. 



Blood-coloured Cryptoclulus. 



GYNANDRIA MONANDRIA. 



Nat. ord. OrchidacEjE, § Epidendre^;. 



CRYPTOCHlLUS. Perianthium tubulosum, fauce contractum, basi 

 antice globosum. Sepala fer& omnino connata, apice tantum libera. Petala 

 libera, paulo minora. Labellum indivisum, liberum, cum basi producta columnas 

 continuum. Columna semiteres, clinandrio dentato. Anthera bilocularis. 



Pollinia 8, paribus 4 materiei pulvereas adhserentia. Terrestris ; pseudo- 



bulbis aggregatis. Folia coriaceu, plana, in sicco striata. Spica secunda, 

 multifiora. 



C. sanguinea. Wallich tentam, p. 36. t. 26. Gen. <§• Sp. Orch. p. 193. 



It is needless to redescribe a plant which has already- 

 been so carefully illustrated by Dr. Wallich in the work 

 above quoted. 



A very pretty species with roundish pseudo-bulbs form- 

 ing tufts, and producing each a single broad coriaceous 

 recurved leaf. When the pseudo-bulbs are forming they are 

 enveloped in broad, green, carinate sheaths, tinged with 

 crimson at the edge ; but the latter soon wither away. The 

 flowers were neither so numerous nor was the spike so long- 

 in the cultivated specimen as in the wild ones in my posses- 

 sion from Sylhet ; they are of a brilliant scarlet, and form a 

 compressed or one-sided spike, which, after the flowers have 

 fallen off", is pectinated as it were with the long narrow 

 acuminate rigid bracts. 



It is a native of rocks in the northern provinces of India. 

 Dr. Wallich found it only once, and then in a single spot on 

 stones, on the summit of Chandaghiry, a mountain of 



* The name refers to the concealed lip, or labellum, which cannot be 

 easily seen, inconsequence of the contraction of the mouth of the calyx. 



May, 1838. k 



