NATURE 



465 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1898. 



ORCHIDS OF THE SIKKIM HIMALAYA. 

 Annals of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta. Vol. 

 viii. The Orchids of the Sikkim Himalaya. By Sir 

 George King and Robert Pantling. Part I. Letter- 

 press ; II. Plates of the Malaxideas ; III. Plates of 

 the Epidendre£E and Vandeae ; IV. Plates of the 

 Listereae, Goodyereae, Ophrydeae, and Cypripedite. 

 Pp. iv + 1 1 + 342 4to. (Calcutta : Printed at the 

 Bengal Secretarial Press, 1898.) 



THE publication of vol. viii. of the "Annals of the 

 Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta," makes a valuable 

 contribution to our knowledge of the orchids indigenous 

 to the Eastern Himalaya. It bears the title of "The 

 Orchids of the Sikkim Himalaya," and its authors are 

 Sir George King, K.C.I.E., F.R.S., the distinguished 

 Director of the Royal Botanic Garden, Calcutta, and 

 Mr. George Pantling, Deputy Superintendent of the 

 Government Cinchona Plantation, Sikkim. The many 

 obligations under which the former has placed botanists 

 are well known, but the name of Mr. Pantling is new to 

 orchidology. To the value of his services Sir George 

 King bears emphatic testimony, and he will doubtless 

 make himself a name in Indian botany. The circum- 

 stances under which this work have been produced are 

 interesting. Mr. Pantling's position in Sikkim gave him 

 opportunities of which he has taken full advantage. He 

 sent a small party of trained native (Lepcha) collectors 

 into the ranges between the valley of the " Great 

 Rungeet " river and the higher snows during the hot and 

 rainy seasons of several successive years. 



" These men were provided with a few swift coolies, by 

 whom living plants of every species collected were 

 quickly conveyed to Mr. Pantling, who, while the plants 

 were still fresh, made drawings of them. . . . These 

 Lepcha collectors, as the following pages show, dis- 

 covered a considerable number of species formerly 

 unknown." 



As an additional precaution the native collectors were 

 provided with a stock of Fortnaldehyd, in a weak solution 

 of which " excellent medium " inflorescences of every 

 species collected were preserved. Three hundred copies 

 of the book have been printed ; in half of them the litho- 

 graphs are lightly printed, and the flowers and analyses 

 coloured ; in the other half, the lithographs are darkly 

 shaded and uncoloured. 



" The drawings have all been put on stone by natives 

 of Bengal educated at the Government School of Art in 

 Calcutta. And the colouring has, under very careful 

 supervision on Mr. Pantling's part, been done by the sons 

 of Nepaulese coolies employed on the Government 

 Cinchona Plantations — boys who had never, until Mr. 

 Pantling took them in hand, been accustomed to use any 

 implement more delicate than a hoe. Mr. Pantling's 

 perseverance and skill in drilling these boys into accurate 

 ' colourists has been a standing marvel to everybody who 

 has seen them at work." 



In the "Introduction" Sir George King discusses two 

 questions, upon one of which he finds himself at variance 

 with the highest authorities, as well as with his col- 

 laborator, Mr. Pantling. Messrs. Darwin, Bentham and 

 NO. 1507, VOL. 58] 



Hooker, Bolus, Rolfe, Pfitzer and Krantzlin, following^ 

 Robert Brown and Lindley, consider that the stamen is 

 single in the genera Orchis, Habenaria, Herminium,. 

 Diplomeris, and Satyrium, belonging to the Ophrydeie. 

 Sir George has satisfied himself that in the Sikkim. 

 Ophrydec-E this is not so, and that these have two anthers,, 

 one cell of each being fertile, the other infertile. 



The other question is one of classification, as to which' 

 Sir George and Mr. Pantling are in agreement. They 

 would {a) restore Lindley's tribe Malaxideae, which has- 

 recently been merged in Epidendreae ; {b) re-include ii). 

 the Vandeae a few specified genera which have lately been 

 added to the Epidendreae ; and (c) break up Neottia: into 

 two tribes, Listereae and Goodyereae. It is further stated> 

 in the introduction that — 



" Our study of the Sikkim species convinces us that 

 the fertilisation of orchids by insect agency is by no 

 means so universal as is sometimes supposed." 



This is corroborated by the occasional self-fertilisation 

 of cultivated plants, among them one specially mentioned 

 by our authors, Dendrobium crepidatum. In regard to- 

 orchid classification numerous changes have of recent 

 years recommended themselves to botanists, who havCj 

 for example, transferred to Miltonia from Odontoglossum 

 the large-lipped section of plants to which M. vexillariuy. 

 Roezlii, phalcenopsis, IVarscewiczii, &c., belong. 



The letterpress of vol. viii. of the "Annals" extends 

 to 342 large quarto pages, the plates number 448, and. 

 there are indices both to text and plates. A full and. 

 clear botanical description of every plant figured is given 

 in English, with its habitat, height above the sea, season, 

 of flowering, general characteristics, and distribution 

 elsewhere than in the Sikkim Himalaya. In the coloured 

 copies, coloured flowers and other parts of every species 

 described are given, accompanied by botanical details,, 

 coloured and enlarged. 



In looking through this work, any one acquainted with 

 cultivated orchids can hardly fail to be struck with the 

 large number of interesting plants it contains which are 

 not to be met with in cultivation, even in the most ex- 

 tensive collections — and also with the not inconsiderable 

 number for the first time described and figured therein. 

 If the labours of the authors suffice to bring home to 

 collectors of orchids the fact that many of the small- 

 flowered genera are as beautiful and interesting as the 

 large, they would produce good fruit. Of the genus 

 Cirrhopetalum alone there are numerous species than 

 which it would be difficult to find any orchid with more 

 beautiful, fantastic and striking flowers, e.g. C. MeduscCy 

 C. piciuratum, C. ornatissimuniy C. Cumingi, C. O'Brieni- 

 anum, C. Mastersianum, and others. In referring to 

 this genus it may be noted that the remarkable Cirrho- 

 petalum, represented in pi. 133, is not C. omatissimumy 

 which has a whorled umbel and not a solitary flower, and 

 has been figured in the Botanical Magazine, t. 7229, and 

 elsewhere, its near Burmese ally, C. Collettii, having been 

 figured, t. 7198, in the same work.. The species figured in 

 pi. 133 was recently sent to Kew, but was not identified.. 

 If it has not been authoritatively named, it might well be 

 dedicated to Sir George King, and bear his name. 



Of the genus Dendrobium thirty-six species are figured,, 

 and of these some twenty-four are, or have been, in 



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