28 ORCHIDS OF JAMAICA 



or lanceolate, membranous, with many converging nerves with 

 netted veins. Flowers small or minute, subsessile, in a lax or 

 dense terminal spike which is often elongate. Sepals subequal, 

 free, erect or somewhat spreading. Petals cohering with the 

 median concave sepal. Lip erect from the base of the column 

 which it embraces, produced below into a descending obtuse 

 spur. Column short ; stigma at the base of the erect rostellum. 

 Anther erect, shortly acuminate, cells contiguous, distinct ; pollinia 

 granular, pendulous from an oblong gland of the rostellum, which 

 is deeply 2-fid on the fall of the pollinia. Capsule oblong or 

 ellipsoidal. 



Species about 60, natives of the warmer regions of America 

 and Asia. 



The name Erythrodes (Blume Bijdr. Flor. Ned. Ind. 410, 

 t. 72, 1825) must be adopted for this genus, — Physurus (L. C. 

 Rich, in Mem. Mus. Par. iv. 55, 1818) being a nomen nudum. 

 We cannot follow Schlechter (Schum. & Lauterb. Nachtr. 

 Fl. Deutsch. Siidsee, 87) in separating as Erythrodes the Old 

 World species as a distinct genus from the species of the New 

 World. His distinction rests on the bilobed character of the 

 spur in the Old World species, which in our opinion is 

 insufficient. The habit of the species from both hemispheres is 

 similar, and the general structure of the flowers also closely 

 corresponds. In the West Indian species, E. plantaginea, the 

 spur sometimes shows an indication of lobing in a slight median 

 depression. 



Perianth, including spur, about J in. 1 1. E. plantaginea. 



Perianth, including spur, about | in. 1. 



Plant more or less hairy (except leaves). 



Lip with a lunate apical lobe 2. E. hirtella. 



Plant glabrous. Lip with a roundish 3- 

 lobed apex, the middle lobe long and 

 narrow 3, E.jamaicensis. 



1. E. plantaginea comb. nov. ; stem trailing along the ground, 

 attaining a length of 6 ft. and emitting roots at the nodes like 

 Yanilla, stout, leafy and glabrous below, slender, hairy, and with 

 a few scales above ; leaves glabrous, oval-elliptical, shortly 

 acuminate, tapering into the stalk, sometimes the uppermost leaf 

 much smaller in ti^ansition to the sheaths ; lip oblong, concave, 

 enclosing the column, with an apical, ovate, often crenulate lobe 

 (but the lip appears to be sometimes undivided), 5-7-nerved. — 

 Physurus plantagineus Lindl. Gen. & Sp. Orch. 503 (1840) ; 

 Griseh. Fl.. Br. W. Ind. 643; Cogn. in Symb. Ant. vi. 346. 

 Orchis elatior &c. Shane Cat. 119 & Hist. i. 250, t. 147, /. 2. 

 Satyrium plantagineum L. Syst. ed. 10, 1244 (1759); Sw. Obs. 

 Bot. 320 ; Salisb. Ic. ined. fol. 585. Orchis plantaginea Sw. in 

 Vet. Handl. Stochh. xxi. 207 (1800). (PI. 3, f. 15.) 



