BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, JANUARY 25, 1977 VoL. 25, No. 
THALIA MARAVARA AND THE RIGID 
AIR-BLOSSOM 
Notes on some species of Acampe (Orchidaceae) 
GUNNAR SEIDENFADEN* 
Hendrick Adriaan van Rheede tot Draakestein had prepared 
the 12th volume of his *‘Hortus Indicus Malabaricus’’ before he 
died in 1691, but possibly the century had turned before his 
drawing of Thalia Maravara was published as the first represen- 
tative of the later described genus Acampe Lindley. See Plate 8. 
To trace the history of this plant (Rheede 1703: t.4) with all — or 
at least some — of its ramifications through 250 years, one must 
enter into the dense jungle of orchid taxonomy and nomencla- 
ture with all the dangers of getting on the wrong trail or being 
completely lost. In the case of Thalia Maravara, we are today 
still not in the clear, for the name Acampe praemorsa (Roxb.) 
Blatt. & McCann, under which it is usually known, is 
nomenclaturally illegitimate and taxonomically uncertain. 
In the hothouses of the Botanical Gardens of Copenhagen, for 
many years we have grown several large plants which I| collected 
in Thailand, and which in ‘Orchids of Thailand’’ (Seidenfaden 
& Smitinand 1965: 703, Fig. 523) we called Acampe longifolia 
Lindl. Some years ago, P. F. Hunt (1970: 98) categorically stated 
that the correct name for Lindley’s Acampe longifolia was A. 
rigida (Buch.-Ham. ex Smith) P. F. Hunt, and its distribution is 
limited to Thailand and the Malayan Peninsula, while Acampe 
multiflora (Lindl.) Lindl., with which it had often been confused 
is found to the west of Thailand in the Himalayas and adjacent 
parts of India. I was intrigued by this statement because the 
“Research Associate, Orchid Herbarium of Oakes Ames, Botanical 
Museum, Harvard University. 
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