162 ON HABENARIA MIERSIANA. 
conjectural point of difference, for he can scarcely have seen the plant 
of Champion, who only twice met with it, whilst I have myself, I be- 
lieve, never possessed but three specimens, two of which are in my 
herbarium, the other sent to Professor H. G. Reichenbach. Having 
subsequently received a specimen from Maximowicz, Miquel remarks :* 
“ H. Sieboldiana, quam prope Nagasaki legerunt Maximowicz et 
Mohnike, ab illo Z. radiata, Lindl., statuitur, qui itaque synonymon 
Thunbergianum huc duxit: doüec exemplar authenticum investigatum 
sit, hac de re dubia supersunt." These doubts can perhaps only be 
authoritatively solved by the botanists of Upsala; but that there is no 
good reason for calling in question the identity of Champion's aud 
Miquel's species with that of Thunberg is, I think, evident, from the 
fact that the former has apparently been gathered by every botanist 
who has collected around Nagasaki, where M. Maximowicz resided an 
entire year, and enjoyed every facility for exploration; that it is the 
only plant yet found there agreeing at all with Thunberg's description 
and plate; and that, looking to the great difficulties and impediments 
that a traveller had to encounter, as graphically detailed in his preface, 
some allowance may fairly be made for a drawing executed from a 
dried, and very likely depauperate and indifferent specimen. 
n describing a new Cantonese Orchid in the last volume of this 
Journal, I referred it to Peristylus, explaining that I did so, not from 
any conviction of the validity of that genus, but because I felt uncer- 
tain as to the limits of any larger group in which to locate it. I ma 
take this opportunity of saying that, on more mature reflection, I quite 
concur with the reduction of Cæloglossum, Peristylus, Platanthera, and 
Gymnadenia to Habenaria, as proposed by Mr. Bentham and since 
acquiesced in by Professor Asa Gray,t two of the most accomplished 
of living botanists. Nor, indeed, though at present inclined to keep 
it so, am I satisfied that the absence of a dursicula suffices to maintain 
the genus apart from Orchis, with which it is combined by Grenier 
and Wilkomm. For, while the existence of fleshy stigmatie cornua 
could scarcely of itself be defended as a sufficient ground for the 
generic severance of Habenaria from Platanthera, it must, at least in 
any philosophical classification, if depended on, be recognized as of 
equal and unvarying value in very closely allied groups. But Professor 
* Op. cit. iii. 194. 
t Man. Bot. N. Un. St., 5th ed. 499. 
