HOLOTHRIX. 118 
Sepals herbaceous, subequal, connivent. Petals longer than the 
sepals, narrow, entire or variously divided at the apex. Lip adnate to 
the column at base, erect or spreading, concave or involute at the 
sides, cut into three or more segments at the apex, produced at base 
into a straight or curved spur. Column very short, [the rostellum ?] 
usually eared at the sides of the small bipartite stigma; clinandrium 
erect, wide, hollow, or almost hood-shaped; connective of the anther 
not distinct from the clinandrium, the cells ovoid, adnate, distinct, 
included; pollinia coarsely-grained, with very short caudicles termi- 
nating in one (or perhaps sometimes two?) glands. Capsule ovoid or 
oblong, erect or bent.—Terrestrial herbs with one, or two, sessile, 
broadly ovate, or orbicular-reniform radical leaves; slender and usually 
hairy scapes; small, spiked, often secund, mostly greenish flowers; 
sepals usually hairy; petals and lip always glabrous. (Name from 
saws, wholly, and Op, a hair, in reference to the constantly hairy 
indument. ) 
Distrisution.—About twenty species are known, three of which are 
Abyssinian, the rest South-African, occurring mostly in the coast 
districts; two species, however, reach the mountains of the inland 
regions, and one is even found in the dry country of Little Namaqua- 
land, near Odkiep. 
KEY TO -THE SPECIES: 
Leaves glabrous; petals white ..................eeeeee 1. H. Munprm. 
Leaves pubescent; petals green. 
Leaves more or less thick and fleshy. 
Hairs coarse; or sealy.....).....:...cememeeen 2. H. squaMuLosa. 
Hairs fine. 
Flowers large, 3-5 lines long ............ 3. H. conDENSATA. 
Flowers small, 2-8 lines long............ 4. H. parvirowia. 
Leaves not fleshy. 
Segments of lip very long ............... 5. H. Graciuis. 
Segments of lip short ..................44. 6. H. vituosa. 
1. Holothrix Mundtii, Sonder, in Linnea, vol. xix. (1847), p. 77.— 
Three to six in. high, slender; tuber globose or ovoid, matted with fine 
hairs; leaves two, radical, the lower broadly ovate or orbicular, the 
upper smaller, ovate, acute, glabrous, ciliate on the margin; scape pilose 
with shortish brown hairs, which are thinly placed above, but thicker 
below, 4-9-flowered, flowers somewhat erect, turned in every direction ; 
bract ovate, cuspidate, pilose, very much shorter than the ovary; 
sepals glabrous, oblong, obtuse, shorter than the petals; petals ovate- 
