18 



16. AMARYLLIS Banksiana. 



Supra ^.11. 



With respect to this plant Mr. Herbert writes as 

 follows : — 



" Your A. Banksiana is not mine. If you will look to my 

 engraving, you will find that my flower is 2|ths inches long, 

 yours only l^, and it is much redder; and the peduncles of 

 my plant from the Banksian Herbarium are much stouter than 

 those of your plant. I have no doubt of mine being A. grandi- 

 flora var. Yours seems to have the bulb and foliage of 

 A. grandiflora, with flowers more like minor and striata." 



y 17. PONERA striata. 



A very singular Orchidaceous plant has lately flowered 

 with Mrs. Wray of Cheltenham, among a collection sent to 

 that lady from Guatemala by Mr. Skinner. It has the roots 

 of a Neottia, a slender stem three or four feet high, un- 

 branched, and covered with narrow grassy leaves, from four 

 to six inches long, the points of which are obliquely emargi- 

 nate, and the sheaths rough, like those of Arpophyllum, with 

 little green or purple tubercles. When old the stems become 

 leafless, are closely covered with rugged sheaths, and produce 

 here and there from their axils clusters of two or three sessile 

 flowers, of a pale buff" colour, and less than half an inch long. 

 In form they are exactly like a Maxillaria or a Dendrobium ; 

 both sepals and petals being striped with bright reddish- 

 brown. The column is short, taper, with a pair of small 

 auricles on each side of the anther-bed, and a dorsal tooth 

 curved over the anther, which is membranous, 4-celled, and 

 contains four pollen-masses adhering in pairs by means of 

 single straps of powdery matter. The labellum is wedge- 

 shaped, slightly downy, curved downwards in the middle, and 

 two-lobcd at the apex. It evidently belongs to the rare and 

 little known genus Ponera, (so called from nouypof) unhappy, 

 in allusion to the starveling appearance of the species), and 

 represents among Epidendrese the tribes of Malaxeae and 

 Vandea*., of which Dendrobium and Maxillaria are respec- 

 tively the types. The present opportunity induces me to offer 



