464 GYNANDRiA MONANDRiA. Cymhidium. 



gal, and found on various trees, though chiefly on the man- 

 goe. Flowering time the rainy season. 



Stem creeping, sending forth h)ng, thick, round, raraous, 

 fleshy, whitish roots, which fasten firmly to the trunk or 

 branches of the tree they grow on. The plants are seldom 

 more than two or tliree feet in length, for they decay at the 

 base, as fast as they shoot from the top. Leaven sheatliing, 

 bifarious, approximate, recurved, linear, keeletl, praemorse, 

 five or six inches long. Scape generally axillary, solitary, 

 naked, supporting froin six to twelve large beautiful flow- 

 ers. Petals five, nearly equal, expanding, oblong; margins 

 waved, and here and there a little inflected ; upper surface 

 as in E. tessallatum, checkered with yellow and dusky fer- 

 ruginous purple, underneath white. Lip shorter than the 

 petals. Horn conical, protruding towards the germ, be- 

 tween the two lower petals ; lamina oblong, turgid ; apex 

 two-lobed ; sides reflexed, so as to be convex above, and 

 deeply concave underneath ; in tessallatum incurved into a 

 tube, and the apex acute; colour bluish purple or violet to- 

 wards the apex ; the upper lip or portion which forms the 

 attachment of the lip and horn to the base of the column of 

 the fructification, has two lateral lobes, obliquely broad- 

 lanceolate, with their acute points incurved towards the apex 

 of the column. Column of the fructification thick, short and 

 obtuse, open in the interior margin near the apex. This mouth, 

 or opening tapers down through the column, into a point, 

 which ends in the belly of the germ ; operculum sub-orbicu- 

 lar, with two pits for the two round poUiniferous balls ; when 

 the lid of which is removed gently, the two anthers rise with 

 a jerk in their broad cordate filaments ; the lid inserted on 

 the interior parts of the top of the column by a large infun- 

 dibuliform base. If removed with less care, and before the 

 anthers are ripe, they remain in their cells, and the funnel- 

 shaped base of the filament rises erect. Stigma or channel 

 for conveying the subtile male essence to the germ a clammy 

 opening in the fore part of the column near its top. Peri- 



