16 CXLVIII. ORCHIDE/E. (J. D. Hooker.) [Cremastra. 



41/1. CRE1VI ASTRA, Lindl. 



A terrestrial herb; rootstock tuberous. Lea ves radical, elliptic, plicate. 

 Scape solitary, stout, sheathed, flowers in secund racemes, pendulous. 

 Sepals and petals very long, narrow, connivent in a tube below, lanceolate 

 acuminate and spreading and recurved above. Lip adnate to the base of 

 the column, erect, linear, base subsaccate, tip dilated 3-lobed, lobes linear, 

 disk with a tongue-shaped appendage. Column very long, slender, straight, 

 top dilated 3-lobed ; anther shortly stipitate, 1-celled ; pollinia 4, ovoid, 

 compressed, caudicle and gland membranous. 



C. Wallichiana, Lindl. Gen. 8f Sp. Orchid. 172 ; Franch. fy Savat. 

 Enum. PI. Jap. ii. 24. Hyacinthorchis variabilis, Blume Cent. Plant. 

 Nov. 1829, 4; Mus. Bot. 48, fig. 16 ; Walp. Ann. iii. 628. 



TEMPERATE HIMALAYA ; Nepal, Wallich. Sikkim, alt. 5-7500 ft., J. D. H., &c. 

 DISTRIB. Japan. 



Tuber the size of a chestnut. Leaves 6-10 by 2-2J in., subsessile or petioled. 

 Scape with raceme 1-2 ft. ; sheaths long, loose ; flowers 1^ in. long, narrow, purple ; 

 pedicels short ; bracts linear. I find no evidence of Blume's " Centuria " ever having 

 been published, or even printed ; if it was so, his name has priority. 



42. GEODORTJBX, Jackson. 



Terrestrial herbs, rootstock tuberous hypogeal. Leaves elliptic, acute, 

 plicate. Scape from the rootstock, stout, erect, sheathed, shorter than the 

 leaves ; flowers crowded in decurved racemes, bracts narrow membranous. 

 Sepals and broader petals conniving or spreading. Lip sessile on the base 

 or short foot of the column, cymbiform, membranous, margins involute, 

 disk with or without ridges ending in calli, and with a forked b sal 

 callus. Column short, stout ; anthers 2, cells, appendaged after dehiscence 

 by the persistent detached faces of the cells ; pollinia 2, broad f oveolate 

 sessile or subsessile on a broad strap or gland. Species 6-8 ? Indian, 

 Malayan and Australian. 



I am unable to define the species from Herbarium specimens, or to reduce to any 

 system the descriptions and drawings of Roxburgh, Brown, Lindley and Griffith. 

 The following descriptions are provisional only. 1 have spent days to no purpose in 

 endeavours to improve on it by the analysis of specimens. 



1. Cr. purpureum, Br. in Sort. Kew, Ed. 2, v. 207 (Char, reform.} ; 

 usually tall, leaves at length petioled, sepals linear-oblong acute 3-nerved, 

 petals rather broader obovate-oblong apiculate 5-nerved, lip subpanduri- 

 formly oblong, tip dilated 2-lobed, disk with a broad channelled ridge 

 ending in rased calli or a crenate callus. Lindl. Gen. Sc Sp. Orchid. 175 ; 

 Dalz. fy Gibs. Bomb. Fl. 266. G. dilatatum, Wall. Cat. 7376. Limodorum 

 nutans, Eoxb. Cor. PI. i. t. 40 ; Fl. Ind. iii. 470 (descr. and Jig. in both erro- 

 neous}. Malaxis nutans, Willd. Sp. PI. iv. 93. 



TROPICAL HIMALAYA, from Nepal eastwards; BENGAL, ASSAM, BURMA, &c. 

 DECCAN PENINSULA and CEYLON. DISTRIB. Malay Islands, Australia ? 



Brown's G. purpureum was founded on Roxburgh's drawing of Limodorum nutans, 

 a native of the Circars, but of which no specimen is recorded to exist. It is repre- 

 sented and described as having the scape longer than the leaves, a lax-fld. raceme, 

 and an acute lip ; characters not hitherto found in any Geodorum. But if it be 

 allowed that the elongate scape and lax-flowered raceme are due to the lengthening 



