lip furnished at base with a tooth on each side, spur funnel- 

 shaped at base gradually tapering to filiform, pendulous and 

 usually arched or curved, 3-5'2 cm. long ; column short ; clinan- 

 drium oblong, very obtuse ; rostellum beaked, projecting forward, 

 3-partite, lateral segments papillose-bearded, the middle one 

 lanceolate nude subtruncate ; pollinia ovoid, glands lanceolate, 

 inserted under the lateral segments of the rostellum, the under 

 surface viscid, with separate linear somewhat flattened stalks. 



Described from a living plant which flowered in the Botanic 

 Gardens, Cape Town, Nov. 4, 1884, and from several dried 

 specimens ; the figure drawn from the first-named. Colour of 

 the flowers creamy white. 



Remarks upon the genus Mystacidium, Lindletj. 



Liudley founded the genus Mystacidium on this species (in Hook. 

 Comp. Bot. Mag. ii, 206 (1836) ) which he had three years earlier 

 published as Angraexum capense. He there observes : "With the habit 

 of an Angraecum this curious little plant has characters of so marked 

 a kind as to render it impossible to combine it with that genus. The 

 curious two-legged caudicula, each poiut of which is inserted iuto the 

 middle of a transparent gland, the naked rostellum, on which the legs 

 of the caudicula are placed without any protection from the anther, 

 and the two very curious bearded appendages that stand forward from 

 the upper angles of the column, are all at variance with the structure 

 of Angraecum and its allies." In some remarks under Plate 7 (see 

 Part I. of this work) I expressed the opinion that Mystacidium could 

 not be maintained as distinct from Angraecum. But reconsideration 

 has led me to think that considerable weight may be attached to the 

 character of the "bearded appendages" which I have treated, I know 

 not whether rightly, as parts of the rostellum. These are peculiar, 

 and perhaps play an important part in the economy of fertilisation. 

 It is probably therefore better to retain Mystacidium, but to restrict 

 it to species which exhibit this character. Liudley's " two-legged 

 caudicula," Avhich are in some sort also represented by Harvey in his 

 figures tt. 173, 174, 175 in Thes. Cap., I have failed to find, although 

 I have dissected several flowers. Can they be due to compression or 

 to any other change resulting from drying? Bentham (Gen. Plant, 

 iii, 584) characterises the gland as single. In this and the two fol- 

 lowing species I have always found two distinct glands, which do not 

 even touch one another. Lastly, although Lindley speaks correctly of 

 the "legs of the caudicula" as lying on the rostellum without any 

 protection from the anther, he did not, apparently, see that these pass 

 through the interstices between the segments of the rostellum and are 

 united with the glands which lie completely below, and cannot be seen 

 from above (as shown in figs. 8 and 9 of Plate 55). 



