shown by a photograph of the type sheet) is the result of 
the foliaceous development of the lowermost bracts of the 
inflorescence. While it is unfortunate to be obliged to 
replace a well-known specific name by an older one based 
upon an abnormal specimen, there seems to be no valid 
reason for rejecting the earlier name. 
There is little doubt but that the two concepts, as 
Reichenbach asserted, are the same. Aside from the folia- 
ceous bracts of the inflorescence there is no substantial 
difference between the original descriptions of J. brae- 
tescens and H.aciculare. In 1922, the type sheet of 1. 
bractescens Lindl. in the Lindley Herbarium was ex- 
amined and photographed (by Ames) and the following 
comment noted: “EK. bractescens is an abnormal form of’ 
K.aciculare...’ 
Epidendrum costatum 4. Richard & Galeotti in 
Comptes Rend. Acad. Sci. Par. 18 (1844) 510, 512, 2o- 
men; in Ann. Sci. Nat. ser. 3, 8 (1845) 21. 
The inadequate original description reads: Caule 
compresso ; fol. elliptico-oblongis obtusis; flor. purpureis ; 
racemo terminali: labello adnato orbiculari basi cordato 
crasso, costis divergentibus notato,.”’ 
The type of the species is in Paris and the photo- 
graph of it is not of great diagnostic value. There is, how- 
ever, a colored drawing of the plant with an enlarged 
drawing of asingle flower in the Reichenbachian Herba- 
rium at Vienna. This drawing, which came trom the 
Richard Herbarium, represents the type and is the only 
reliable guide we have to the identity of the species. 
In studying the Epidendrum material of the Gray 
Herbarium, we found two specimens collected by C.G. 
Pringle at Sierra de San Felipe, Oaxaca, Mexico (Pringle 
OSSS & SSSI), Vhese had been determined as J2./ampro- 
cauton Reichb.f., but were unquestionably not referable 
[4 | 
