218 PELORIA IN HABENARIA BIFOLIA. 



a dense tuft of red-brown fine hair-like paleae half an inch long, and 

 peduncle and leaf-rachis densely clothed with spreading soft brown 

 hairs {(Jladon 15795) ; and microplujlla, with small membranous 

 leaves, with 3-7 orbicular segments, a very long slender nearly 

 naked peduncle below the forking of the fertile stem, and its much- 

 reduced leaf and the hair-like pale^e enveloping the base of the 

 stem very short. |) He has also re-gathered recently the following 

 very rare species/vi?;. : — 



15776, 15777. Cyathea vestita Mart. 

 15732, 15733. Cassebeem pimiata lia,i\\i. 



15727. Adiantum simiosum Gardn. 



15728. Pteris ornithopus Mett. 



15736. P. viscosa Moore. 

 15758. Nephrodium acutum Hook. 

 15760. N. Gardnerianuni Baker. 

 15735. Notholcena Pohliana Kunze. 



15737. Gymnoyramme Sellowiana Mett. 

 15796. Tricliopteris eleyans Gardn. 

 15788. Anemia dichutoma Gardn. 

 15787. A. millefoUa Gardn. 



PELOEIA IN HABENARTA BIFOLIA Br. 

 By H. N. Kidley, M.A., F.L.S. 



Mr. BouLftER has lately put into my hands a curious monstrosity 

 of Hahenaria hi folia Br. , in which the lip is exactly similar in form, tex- 

 ture, and size to the petals, and there is no trace of any spur. This 

 occurs in every flower on the spike. Although I am not acquainted 

 with any similar instance in this genus, it is not unknown in other 

 genera, such as Cattleya and Lcdia. There is a figure of a similar 

 monstrosity in Cattleya pumila in the ' Gardeners' Chronicle,' 

 May 9th, 1885, p. 597, and it is most probable that Paxtonia rosea 

 is a peloriated form of a SpatJiioylottis. But there is a point of 

 greater interest in some of the flowers of the Hahenaria. From the 

 base of the column arise two white foliaceous bodies, ovate, oblong, 

 and obtuse, curved up in front of the column. These are doubtless 

 the stigmatic lobes, which are never normally developed into pro- 

 cesses in any of our British Orchids ; but in many of the Habenarias 

 of tropical countries, such as H. macroceras of S. America and West 

 Indies, they take the form — as in this monstrosity — of flattened 

 foliaceous organs, or of terete arms of greater or shorter length. 

 This malformation may thus be set down as an uistance of reversion 

 to an older type. 



The genus Platanthera being now reduced by Mr. Bentham to a 

 section of Hahenaria, from which genus, indeed, it is impossible to 

 separate it by any definite characters, it becomes necessary to alter 

 the generic name Platanthera. It is customary in such cases to 

 preserve the old specific name where possible ; and with respect to 



