232 JSTotices of new and beautiful Plants 



" The number of flowers in each raceme is from fifteen to twenty. 

 The bracts are, for the size of the flowers, rather large, round, ovate, 

 a little stem-clasping, very pale green, and stained with crimson at the 

 points .... The lip is one of the most extraordinary organs known 

 even among orchidaceous plants; it is a long, narrow, flexuous, sharp- 

 pointed body, closely covered with a yellow felt ; just Avithin its point 

 there is a deep purple beard of exceedingly fine compact hairs; on the 

 under side, at a little distance from the point of the lip, is another such 

 beard; and, besides, there is, at the end of the lip, a brush, consisting 

 of very long purple threads, so excessively delicate that the slightest 

 disturbance of the air sets them in motion, when they wave gently to 

 and fro like a tuft of threads cut from a spider's web. Of the last 

 mentioned hairs, some are of the same thickness throughout, others ter- 

 minate in an oblong club, so that, when the hairs are waving in the air, 

 and I do not know that they are ever at rest, a part float along grace- 

 fully and slowly, Avhile the others are impelled, by the weight of their 

 glandular extremities, to a more rapid oscillation." Nor is this all; the 

 lip itself, with its yellow felt, its two beards, and its long purple brushes, 

 is articulated with the column by such a very nice joint, that to breathe 

 upon it is sufficient to produce a rocking movement, so conspicuous and. 

 protracted, that one is really tempted to believe that there must be 

 something of an animal nature infused into the most unplant-like pro- 

 duction." 



Messrs. Loddiges possess it and another species with similar 

 habits. {Bot. Reg., March.) 



Of the plants enumerated under this order, Epidendrum Skin- 

 neri, Oncidium LancednM?)i. and crispum, CirrhaeVt tristis, As- 

 pasia variegata, Burlingtonia Candida, Chysis aurea and Bolbo- 

 phyllum barbigerum, are the most remarkable and splendid. 



IjilidcecB. 



SCI'LLA 

 Cupanidna Romer et Schultz. syn : Ornithogalum Cffiriileum Rafancsque. Ciipani's Squitl. A 

 hardy bulb; growing two feet high ; with purplish flowers ; appearing in June ; a native 

 of Sicily. Bot. Reg., 1878. 



" A great rarity "... in Britain. The habit of the plant 

 is similar to the ornithogalums; the flowers are of a dull purple, 

 and appear on corymbose spikes; the pistils are bright blue, 

 which contrast prettily with the purple petals. A good acquisi- 

 tion to our limited number of hardy June flowering bulbs. [Bot. 

 Reg., July.) 



TU'CCA 

 draconis Hain. Dragon-tree-lfaved Adam's Needle. A liardy (?) evergreen plant : growinp 

 nine or ten feet liieh : with white flowers : appearing from May to August : a native of 

 North Carolina. Bot. Keg., 1894. 



" The most stately of the genus." It grows along the sea- 

 shore of North and South Carolina, intermixed with the Y. glo- 

 riosa. Dr. Lindley remarks that " what may be species and 

 what varieties of this noble genus, is, in the present state of 

 botanical information, impossible to say." We have ourselves 

 plants raised from seeds of what we received as the gloriosa, 

 which exhibit great variation in their habit; some of the leaves 

 are erect and rigid, others thin and flaccid. The flowers of the 

 present plant are distinguished by their spreading petals, the seg- 



