168 ORCHIDS OF THE CAPE PENINSULA. 
The sepals and lip are a pure bright white, each with 2 or 3 small 
purple dots in the centre, as a foil to set off their brilliancy; the 
petals, with a white ground, are more richly spangled with dots of 
carmine, dark purple, and gold; leaves bright green above, crimson 
below; the sheaths along the scape are striped with bands of crimson, and 
the floral bracts veined with the same colour. This is one of the most 
beautiful and curious of all our small South-African Orchids. Harvey 
discovered only a single specimen, upon which Lindley’s description 
was founded. But, in fact, Masson had already found and drawn it in 
1787, as may be seen from an unfinished sketch in the British Museum. 
Then, like so many other Cape plants, it lay ungathered and unheard- 
of for fifty years, until Harvey recovered it. Nearly fifty years after 
Harvey I met with it growing abundantly on Constantia Mt., and at 
Houw Hoek, in the summer of 1884. The resemblance between its 
flowers and those of a species of Adenandra, which grew near it at the 
latter station, was very striking, and suggested a possible connection 
in the agency of their fertilization. 
Puatr 36. — Fig. 1, flower, side view, nat. size; 2, lip x 14 diameters; 3, odd 
sepal x 1}; 4, side sepal x 13; 5, column, with petals; 6, petal; 8, column viewed 
from front and above; 9, ditto, viewed from behind,—all the latter variously 
magnified. 
§ 8. Herschelia. 
Lip crenate, waved, or entire. 
Lip oblong, reflexed ; gland longer than broad .. .. D. Gramintroura 40. 
Lip ovate, incurved at the sides; gland broader thanlong D. purpurascens 41. 
Lip lacerate. 
Spike 2—4-flowered; flowers nearly white oF .. D. Barpata 42. 
Spike 4—6-flowered ; flowers blue; lip white .. .. D. venusta 43. 
Spike 6—15-flowered ; flowers purple; lip green.. .. D.uucens 44. 
40. Disa graminifolia, Ker, in Journ. Sci. R. Inst., vol. vi. (1819), 
44,+. 1, f. 2. — Glabrous, erect, 1-2 ft. high; leaves 4-6, radical, 
linear, grass-like, lax, shorter than the scape; scape slender, sheaths 
acute, membranous, closely clasping; raceme laxly 3-6-flowered ; 
bracts lanceolate, acuminate, shorter than the ovary; odd_ sepal 
galeate, erect, wide-mouthed, emarginate, about 9 lines long, with a 
short inflated horizontal spur 2 lines long; side sepals oblong, obtuse, 
mucronulate below the apex, spreading, about 8 lines long; petals 
roundish-oblong and horizontal in the lower part, then suddenly bent 
upward at a right angle and dilated, the rounded cuneate extremities 
forming together a green eye-like centre to the flower; lip oblong, 
obtuse, waved, spreading, at length revolute; anther horizontal, short; 
gland single (or sometimes 2 ?), when single oblong, longer than wide ; 
rostellum 8-toothed, erect ; ovary clavate, 5-6 lines long. Herschelia 
celestis, Lindley, Gen. & Sp. Orch. (1838), p. 862; Reichenbach the 
