116 Nasu: Costa RICAN ORCHIDS 
last year, the flowers being of a dull orange, thus closely ap- 
proaching the “ dottergelb” applied by Reichenbach in describing 
the color of the flowers of his species, and incidentally showing 
that the Costa Rican plants, at all events, do not produce green 
flowers in cultivation. So it does not seem possible to reconcile 
this with the green flowers originally accredited to P. p/umosa, nor 
does it seem likely that a plant from Trinidad should be identical 
with one from an elevation, in practically the same latitude, of 5000 
feet. The short velvety pubescence of the peduncle, axis of the 
raceme, bracts and flowers, and the color and details of the flowers, 
especially those of the lip, of P. minax so closely coincide with 
those in Mr. Maxon’s plant that I cannot but place it there, rather 
than take up for it the name of P. plumosa, as done by Hemsley 
(Biol. Cent. Am. Bot. 3: 201. 1883) for a specimen collected by 
Wendland, also in Costa Rica. Perhaps Lindley was wrong_as to 
the color of his flowers, although he indicates that he was dealing 
with fresh material, or he may have been mistaken as to the coun- 
try from which the material came —at all events, it seems better 
now to adopt for this Costa Rican plant a name which can be ap- 
plied with some certainty, rather than a doubtful one. A compar- 
ison with Lindley’s type may some time definitely settle the question. 
ISOCHILUS LINEARIS (Jacq.) R. Br. in Ait. Hort. Kew. 
ed. 2.8% 200. 1813 
Epidendrum lineare Jacq. Select. Stirp. Am. Hist. 221. p/. 137. f. 
fic A7O%: 
Partially shaded rocky. bank, Santiago, uo. ro8. Widely dis- 
tributed in tropical America, but originally described from 
Martinique. 
PONERA AMETHYSTINA Reichenb. f. in Saund. 
Ref. Bot. p/. 93. 1869 
Santo Domingo de San Mateo. On tree-trunk by Rio 
Machuco, zo. 5.15 ; and on tree trunk near Rio Grande, mo. 579. 
This region is described by the collector as an exceedingly dry 
one but without a characteristic desert vegetation. An interesting 
find. The plant was originally figured and described from living 
material, secured by Mr. Skinner at Santa Fé de Veraguas, 
