17 



posited in large angular nodules. He describes them as 

 being easily separated from the tissue in which they are 

 imbedded, resembling pebbles of rock crystal, tough like 

 horn, not to be torn, crackling between the teeth like frag- 

 ments of caoutchouc, and seeming to be homogeneous. Iodine 

 did not stain them blue, but claret-coloured, especially the 

 alcholic solution. By the process of charring they were dis- 

 covered to consist of extremely minute transparent cells, filled 

 with a substance of the same refractive power as themselves, 

 on which account they appear to be homogeneous. 



The late Professor Meyen, of Berlin, has criticised this 

 account in his last report upon the progress of physiological 

 Botany. After reading his remarks with all the attention we 

 are able to give them, and re-examining the roots of both 

 Salep and other Orchises, we can only say that we adhere to 

 every particular contained in the paper in the Linnean Trans- 

 actions. The nodules are not starch, but Bassorine ; there 

 is no recorded case of identity between those nodules and 

 other internal secretions, and the proof of their consisting of 

 minute transparent cells is, we are still of opinion, not only a 

 new but highly important fact. We never said it was in- 

 explicable upon any known principle ; on the contrary, the 

 reference to the existence of cytoblasts upon the sides of the 

 minute cells sufficiently indicated the explanation we should 

 have given of the structure had we thought it desirable to do 

 so : but the paper was a mere record of an extremely curious 

 fact, and not a dissertation or a physiological speculation. 



42. LuELIA acuminata ; pseudo-bulbis ovatis compressis rugosis, folus so- 

 litariis emarginatis, scapo bifloro, sepalis linearibus petalisque lanceolatis 

 undulatis acuminatis, labelli lobis lateralibus rotundatis intermedio lan- 

 ceolato undulato acuminate 



Found in Guatemala by Mr. Hartvveg, and distributed 

 by the Horticultural Society. It flowered at the same time 

 in the garden at Chiswick and at Carclew, in the collection of 

 Sir C.°Lemon. It is a curious Orchidaceous plant, very near 

 L. rubescens, from which it differs in the scape being two- 

 flowered not racemose, in the sepals being acuminate, and 

 the flowers at least twice as large. It is a pretty species, with 

 pale blush flowers. What seems to be a variety, from Costa- 



MarchD— 1841. c 



