356 CXXI. SCITAMINER. 
form, embraced by the anther-cells; stigma capitate or 2- 
lamellate or dilated ; ovules numerous, horizontal, attached to 
the inner angle of the cells. Fruit usually capsular, 3-valved, 
crowned with the persistent perianth; many-seeded. Seeds 
with or without an aril; outer albumen floury; inner horny; 
embryo straight.— Herbs, with perennial, creeping root-stocks 
or tubers. Leaves all radical and sessile or their long sheaths 
forming erect stems. 
1. KH MPFERIA, Linn. 
Outer perianth (calyx) tubular, slit on one side ; inner of 3 
pieces, 3 outer equal narrow ; 8 inner combined into a large 
flabelliform 8-lobed lip ; filaments produced above the anther 
into a large 2-fid or 3-fid, toothed crest. Stigma fan-shaped, 
ciliated.—Cienkowskia, Schweinfurth, Beitrag, Fl. dithiop. 197. 
va 
Stemless herbs, with numerous fascicled tuberous roots. The tubers spin- 
dle-shaped, on long stalks. Leaves ovate or lanceolate. Scapes radical, 
covered with sheathing, spathaceous bracts. * Flowers large and handsome. 
—1 blue-tlowered species, from Natal, found by Gerrard, and, apparently, 
the plant figured in Schweinfurth’s ‘Flora Athiopiensis,’ and there called 
Cienkowskia Afthiopica. 
ee 
Orver CXXIT. ORCHIDACEZ, 
Flowers bisexual. Perianth with a ringent or irregular 6- 
parted limb ; the outer segments usually coloured and the odd 
one (by a twist in the ovary) uppermost; inner segments more 
petaloid, two lateral similar, the odd one (labellum) unlike 
the others, often lobed or spurred at base. Stamens normally 
3, united in a central column, of these (in the Cape genera) 
only 1, opposite the back sepal, bears an anther. Anther de- 
ciduous or persistent, 2-, 4-, 8-celled; pollen cohering in 
definite or indefinite waxy masses, rarely powdery. Ovary 
1-celled, inferior, with 3 parietal placentas ; ovules indefinite ; 
style combined with the staminal column; stigma a viscid 
cavity or disk in front of the column. Capsule 3-ribbed, 
8-valyed. Seeds exalbuminous, minute, with a loose coat.— 
Herbaceous plants with simple, entire, generally sheathing or 
amplexicaul leaves, either terrestrial with tuberous roots or 
epiphytical, attached to other plants or to rocks by cylindrical 
or filiform aerial roots. These last, the “air-plants,” are most 
numerous in the Tropics, particularly of America; a few are 
found in our Eastern frontier and beyond it. Of the seven 
tribes under which the Order is distributed, but three are 
represented in South Africa. 
