178 BURilA, ITS PEOPLE AXD PRODUCTIONS. 



Aemties, Lour. 



Caulescent epiphytes with two ranked leaves. Flowers in racemes or spikes. 

 Perianth spreading or more or less closed. Sepals and petals nearly equal, the lateral 

 sepals being often oblique at the base, and connate with the prolonged base of the 

 column. Column short. Lip jointed with the claw of the column, spurred or bagged, 

 3-lobed ; side lobes small, centre variously shaped. Pollen-masses 2, normal. 



A. VIEENS. 



One of our most lovely Orchids, one, too, which must be well known to all 

 collectors in Burma. It is veiy near to the old A. odoratuin, but far finer. Leaves 

 broad, blunt and depressed ; flowers in long elegant drooping racemes, individually 

 about an inch long, waxy, white, spotted with violet, deliciously fragrant. Sepals 

 and petals obovate, obtuse. The lip terminates in a pointed, curved, and up-turned 

 spur or horn, its 3 lobes are connivent, the side lobes being erect and toothed, and the 

 middle incurved between them and serrated. All three close over the column and 

 anther, completely hiding them, and when the lip is forcibly opened, it flies back to 

 its closed position much as the flower of the Snapdragon docs. I have often been 

 amused by watching the humble bees and the difficulties they meet with in their 

 efl'orts to get at the honey which lies inside the horn. A bee settles on a flower, and, 

 after a laborious effort, succeeds in ]Hilling back the lip, and thrusting his hairy body 

 inside. Now, while he is in this position, his hinder legs only remaining outside, the 

 force of the spring of the lip presses his thorax against the anther, and when lie backs 

 out, he rubs the anther hard and lifts it, detaching the whole pollen-apparatus, and 

 he presently reappears with it sticking to his back by its glutinous gland. This 

 irritates him, and he sets to work with all his might to rid himself of it, but, his 

 labour is vain, the pollen-masses stick as fast as the old man of the sea on Sinbad's 

 back ; so he gives it uj), and attacks a second flower, with a similar result. He has 

 now two lumps on his hack, and he becomes infuriated, and his frantic struggles to 

 rub them off are very amusing. He must be a bold bee who ventures upon a third 

 flower. I never saw one succeed in rubbing his burden ofi^, so glutinous is the gland. 

 The scene ends by the bee flying away with his load, going home, I suppose, to 

 invoke the aid of his brother bees in unburdening himself. This has always been 

 the result of the visit of bees to this flower when I have witnessed it : they have 

 carried off the pollen-masses. If .such is the case, they can hariUy aid in tlie 

 impregnation of the germ, rather the reverse, and yet A. rirens is one of the Orchids 

 which ripens its pods most freely. Perhaps the flowers become self-impregnated when 

 unmolested (as many must be, humble-bees notwithstanding) by the falling forward 

 of the pollinia on to the stigmatic surface at a later period. 



A. LOBBII. 



Another lovely species, smaller than the last. The leaves are narrower and 

 curved, and the flowers more numerous and dense, on a single or sometimes branched, 

 drooping raceme, which gradually tapers to a point. The flowers are more generally 

 pui-ple than the last. The "Fox-brush Acrides," A. Fiddingii oi gardeners, must 

 be a variety of this species. 



A. AFEDfE. 



Somewhat resembling the last, but known from it at a glance by its habit of 

 growth. The leaves are more fleshy, scimitar-shaped, and generally folded inwards, 

 and the raceme, which is shorter and has fewer flowers, is much more rigid, and 

 instead of drooping gracefully, hangs down perpendicularly without any curve. The 

 flowers are of a deeiier rose colour than those of A. Lobhii. All the three species 

 here last mentioned are widely distributed throughout the Tenasserim Provinces. 



A. DIFFOEME. 



A small almost stcmless plant, with broad, smooth leaves and a panicle of small 

 yellow flowers, of no remarkable beauty as a whole, but of most singular and 

 interesting form indiviilually, and very difficult to describe. The sepals and petals 

 are thrown back, the column is thrust prominently forward liorizontally and has two 



