180 BURMA, ITS PEOPLE AXD PRODUCTIONS. 



S. Blfmei. 



Too well known in Burma to require an elaborate description here. The leaves 

 are strap-shaped, a foot or more long and 1 inch or so wide, terminating abruptly, 

 truncate and erose (i.e. with several irregular points). Flowers numerous, small, 

 crowded in a long beautiful pendulous raceme, covered all over with lilac dots. 

 Lip flat, turned upwards, parallel with the column. Spur blunt, flattened laterally, 

 and slightly curved backwards. Widely distributed and abundant. This plant 

 bears the same sort of relation to the old »S'. guttafum which Airides virens does to 

 A. odorafum, being, in fact, little, if anything, more than a fine variety of the same. 



S. CURVIFOLIUM. 



Stem short. Leaves long, naiTow, curved, channelled, through being folded 

 inwards, obliquely bidentate on the point. Racemes from the a.\ils of the higher 

 leaves, erect or slightly drooping, 4 or 5 inches long. Flowers numerous, f inch 

 across, of an orango-red colour, with an orange-yellow lip. Sepals and petals ovate, 

 equal, spreading. Lip small, oblong, with two small erect lobes on the base. Spur 

 drooping, linear, swollen at the base. A showy Orchid, very abundant in the 

 Tonasserim Provinces. This is 8. miiiiatum of the Botanical Magnzine. Every 

 intermediate form of leaf between S. miniatum and S. currifoUum may bo found. 



S. AlirnLLACEUM. 



In general character very much like the last, but of shorter and denser growth ; 

 in shape of flower also similar, but the flowers are of a beautiful rose colour. In 

 our Tonasserim plant the leaves are short, straight, and rigid, commonly stained 

 with purple, not long and curved as they are in <S. curri folium, but they probably 

 vary according to localitj^ The colour in Bof. Mag., tab. 5595, is represented as 

 lilac, though said in the text to be "rose," which they are. Local, but sometimes 

 abundant where found, appearing to affect open arid jungle and small trees. 



S. C.VLCEOI.AKE. 



This species answers truly to its generic name of bag-lipped. It is a small 

 plant, with a very short stem, the whole not more than about 6 inches in length, 

 bearing a few leaves which are sheathed at the base, linear-oblong, bifid at the end, 

 the two points being unequal and very acute. The flowers, which are few in number, 

 are borne in a sort of umbellate raceme and form a roundish head on a short thick 

 foot-stalk. The sepals and petals are oblong and blunt, being, indeed, rather broader 

 at the end than at the base (or spatulate), spreading, but slightly curved forwards, 

 yellow. The lip is simply a large inflated pouch with a semicircular lamina or 

 plate in front, beautifully fringed. The colour of the pouch, is white at top and 

 orange-yellow at bottom, the lamina and fringe white, but there are some bright red 

 or purple spots on it, as there are also on the edge of the pouch and base of the very 

 short column. From the top of the column and just below the anther a large two- 

 lobed rostellum projects, in which the gland of the pollinia lies. Saccolabiiim deiiiicu- 

 latum answers to the same general description, but is totally different in colour, some- 

 what also in form. I observe that the pollen-masses in this latter plant are hairy, 

 a circumstance I have never noticed in any other orchid. They are so represented in 

 my drawing. The former plant I found at Mergui, the habitat of the latter I forget. 



SAEC.iN"TnUS. 



A genus of Yandeous epiphytes varying much in appearance. Some have the 

 ordinary flat leaf and short stem, and others a long slender stem, and terete or quill- 

 shaped leaves. The flowers are small, but highly coloured, on leaf-opposed racemes. 

 The se]ials and petals are of a uniform shape and size, spreading; they have a fleshy 

 3-lobed lip, jointed with the column and spurred, the spur being partially divided 

 inteioially. Tlie Pollen-masses are of the usual Yandeous type, but (if the species are 

 all rightly placed) the stipes and gland vary mucli in form and size. I find, in every 

 species, situated at the back but upper part of the spur, below the column, a bihjbed 

 fleshy appendage or callus. This varies in shape in different species, but is constant 



