14 Linnean Society. [Feb. 19, 



ful ; it ripens before the Bourbon cotton comes into flower. This 

 last season 1 got a few pods of Egyptian cotton, of the garden 

 growth ; the seed only reached me on the 15 th of July, six weeks at 

 the least too late, and it did not all ripen before the frosts, but what 

 did ripen was long, fine, and strong in the staple, and the pods 

 large. I expect to have a better account of it at the end of this 

 season. I have also some Peruvian seed to experiment on. 



"The herbarium has been largely added to. The family of all others 

 that has yielded most additions perhaps is the Orchidece. There 

 are upwards of thirty epiphytous species growing on the trees in the 

 garden, and many more in the herbarium ; some of them are most 

 interesting additions : one of them is a triandrous Dendrobium, 

 D. normale, Fal. The three anthers are not the only singularity 

 about it. The flower is perfectly regular ; the three sepals being 

 exactly equal, as are also the three petals, which, although of the 

 same length, are twice as broad as the sepals. The column is also 

 symmetrical, and as there is no labellum, it is difiicult when the 

 flower is removed from the axis to find out which of the petals re- 

 presents the lip. Further, and what is most interesting of all, it 

 clearly shows what is the normal position of the supplementary an- 

 thers in the family. Lindley makes them alternate with the lateral 

 petals ; while Brown, from the structure of Apostasia and Cypripe- 

 diutn, states that they alternate with the lateral sepals, and belong 

 to a diff'erent whorl from the fertile anther. In my plant it is most 

 distinctly evident, both by a decurrent ridge on each filament 

 and by transverse sections of the column at all heights down to 

 its base, that the supplementary anthers have the same relative 

 position as the usual fertile one, and in harmony with Lindley's for- 

 mula. Further, 1 have another variety of the species, in which the 

 column is sliced off^ in front as is usual in the genus, and then the 

 labellar petal is invariably developed into a spurred lip, so that it 

 would appear that in the family the irregularity of the lip is a state 

 of anamorphosis consequent on the imperfect development of the 

 column, or vice versd ; in fact, that the deficiency of the one is abs- 

 tracted to make up the excess of the other. Next I discovered an- 

 other genus of the tribe Gastrodia, with a monophyllous perianth, the 

 segments, sepals and petals being united for two-thirds of their length 

 into a tube. I found it on Dhunoultee, and have called it Gamo- 

 plexis ; it has the habit and look of an Orohanche. I have found 

 also a magnificent Malaxideous genus, standing, when in flower, 9 

 feet. You never saw a more superb aff"air, with rich yellow flowers 

 like the Cyrtopera. I have called it Thysanochilus. The seed-vessel 



