een THT ES OEE iT ae 
ae 
Be a 
BOTANICAL: MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
CamBripGr, Massacuusetts, JUNE 25, 1941 Voit. 10, No. 1 
STUDIES IN ISOCHILUS, MORMODES 
AND HEXALECTRIS 
BY 
Donovan S. CoRRELL 
I. THE GENUS ISOCHILUS 
In 1813, Robert Brown proposed the genus Jsochilus 
based on Epidendrum lineare Jacquin. Since 1818, 
twenty-nine additional species have been assigned to the 
genus. Sixteen of these species have been transferred to 
other genera. The remaining fourteen appear to be re- 
ducible to two species, each of which includes two va- 
rieties. 
All of the entities retained in [sochilus are very closely 
related to one another. However, allowing for interme- 
diate plants, the genus may be divided into two rather 
distinct categories—(1) plants possessing a typically com- 
pact unilateral inflorescence (J. major) and (2) plants pos- 
sessing a typically loose distichous or occasionally laxly 
unilateral inflorescence (J. linearis). 
A less critical treatment of the genus would perhaps 
result in placing both I. major and I. linearis in one poly- 
morphic species. However, if typical I. /inearis is com- 
pared with typical J. major, this procedure would seem 
to be extremely radical. Hence, always bearing in mind 
the extreme variability of the genus as a whole, it seems 
best to recognize in the genus several groups exhibiting 
more or less similar and constant characters. 
[1] 
