Dr Graham's Description c)f' New or Rare Plants. 189 



ticillata seem to me more than enough to distinguish them. C. vertieil- 

 lata is described as glabrous, erect, and all the leaves are said to be in 

 verticels of three : the whole of our plant is densely pubescent, and sub- 

 glutinous, ditrused, and too slender to support itself, nian^- of the leaves 

 are opposite. C. verticitlata is also described by Ruiz and Pavon as a 

 much larger plant than it is probable ours will ever become. 



Dendrobiuni speciosum. 



D. speciosum ; caulibus erectis, apice 2-3-phyllis ; foliis ovali oblongis, 

 racemo terminal! mullifloro brevioribus ; petalis angustato-oblongis, 

 labello infra diversuram carina unica, lobo intermedio ecarinato dila- 

 tato — Brown. 

 Dendrobium speciosum, Sm. F.xot. Bot. 1. p. 17- t. 10 — Br. Prodr. 332. 

 —Hort. Kew. 5. 212 — Sprengel, Sp. Plant. 3. 738 — Lindley, Orchidese, 



part i. p. 87 Bot. Mag. 3074. 



Description — Stems (5 inches long, \\ inch broad) bulbous, ovate, atte- 

 nuated upwards, crowded, sulcated, green, with a somewhat silverv skin, 

 marked by three or four circular lines, its structure fibrous, and very 

 rigid, crowned at the apex with two or three leaves. Leaves (4-5 inches 

 long, \\ broad) stem clasping, contracted immediately above their origin, 

 erect, rigid, fleshy, oblong, concave, channelled, slightly waved, reflected 

 at the apex. Raceme (6 inches long) terminal, many-flowered, having a 

 few large clasjiing bractea at the base, and a small ovato-subulate mar- 

 cescent one at the origin of each pedicel. Pedicels {\\ inch long) slightly 

 angled, ascending and secund, at least when the raceme is deflected. 

 Flowers perfumed slightly, nodding, looking towards the apex of the ra- 

 ceme. Perianth, three outer segments unequal, the two lower the short- 

 est, dilated and united at the base, falcate, the upper narrower, erect, li- 

 near-tapering : the two inner of nearly equal length, but narrower, and 

 linear: Lip unguiculate, without spur, claw covered by the united bases 

 of the outer segments of the perianth, 3-lobed ; the central lobe the 

 largest, broader than it is long, emarginate, streaked transversely with 

 purple, especially on the inside, and at the edges both within and with- 

 out. An elevated ridge extends from the base of the middle lobe along 

 the inside of the claw to its insertion, becoming smaller downwards. 

 Column conicrl, flat, spotted with purple in front, concave in front near 

 the apex. Anther terminal, resting upon a flat plate, stretched over the 

 hollow in the front of the column. Anther-case articulated behind, white, 

 blunt, slightly bordered, unilocular, with a ridge in the centre of the lo- 

 culament. Pollen-masses two, each bipartite, waxy, hard, sessile. Ger- 

 men small, green, 3-si(led, immersed in the top of the pedicel, which di- 

 vides into three portions, passing to the base of the outer segments of 

 the perianth, adhering to the germen, the three angles of whch project 

 between the partitions. 

 This species was introduced into Britain by Sir Joseph Banks in 1801. It 

 is native of the tropical districts of New Holland, and likewise of the 

 neighbourhood of Port Jackson. It is generally kept in the stove, and 

 probably it is on this account that it rarely flowers. It has flowered very 

 freely in the greenhouse of the Botanic Garden this year. So many 

 splendid species of this genus have been made known to us of late, that 

 the specific name given to our plant, is not the one which would be se- 

 lected now, were it described for the first time ; but still it is exceed- 

 ingly ornamental. The perianth is figured and described by Dr Hooker 

 as closed, from its lia\ ing to a certain degree faded in its transmission 

 from Liverpool to Glasgow. 

 I have observed an unusual circumstance in drying this plant, which, if 

 not accidental, may be worth noticing, as possibly implying a peculiarity 

 of structure in the cuticle. Many plants which are thick and fleshy, 

 and very retentive of life, it is well known may often be rapidly dried 



