2 ORCHIDS OF THE SIKKIM-HIMALAYA. 
Terrestrial; pseudobulbs with a long leafy pseudostem; leaves 3 to 5, sessile, 
membranous, plicate; inflorescence lateral, raceme branched; lip without 
side lobes or lamelle, convolute; column long with no foot; pollinia 
TOG enoe naaa a aN a a a a VON ААА ААК 
** Pollinia 2— 
Terrestrial, pseudobulbous from a short rhizome; leaves solitary, membran- 
ous, plicate, petioled; inflorescence a racemose scape; lip lamellate; 
column long, with or without foot— 
Column with a deep sac or spur at its base and winged, with no foot; 
lip with side lobes; pollinia trapeziform; anther with a single 
apiculus; pollinia quite free . . ... Та . 5 . эжи - . . 9. Chrysoglossum. 
Column not saccate, wingless, foot long; lip without side lobes; pollinia 
elliptic, attached to a small translucent mass . . . . . . . . 10. Diglyphosa. 
1. Oberonia, Lindl. 
Epiphytes with usually very short, often tufted, stems. Leaves coriaceous or fleshy, 
usually ensiform (rarely terete), always distichous and equitant. Flowers minute, numer- 
ous, sometimes whorled, arranged in a long, erect or deflexed, spike-like or raceme- 
like inflorescence, but expanding centrifugally. Sepals sub-equal, ovate or oblong. 
Petals as wide as or narrower than the sepals. Lip larger than the sepals, sessile, 
rarely entire, usually lobed and often erose-lobular, the hypochile more or less concave 
or with a nectarsecreting pit near its base. Column very short, stout, rarely winged. 
Anther terminal, incumbent; pollinia 4, cohering in pairs. A genus of about 60 
species distributed in the Indo-Malayan region, but extending also to Australia and 
the islands of the Pacific. | 
Norr.—In none of the living specimens of Oberonia which we have examined are the pairs of pollinia connected 
in any way with the rostellum. The rostellum has, however, at its extremity a minute globule of transparent viscid 
matter, and immediately above this lie the attenuated ends of the pollen masses. So closely do these approximate 
to each other that contact between them may be caused by the slightest movement of an insect in the neighbourhood, 
or even by the wind. Contact is probably also caused as the anther shrivels and the pollinia thus get displaced from 
their natural bed on the clinandrium, In dried specimens of Oberonia the pollinia are almost invariably attached to 
this rostellar viscus, and it is this circumstance which has probably given rise to the belief that they were 
originally connected in the living state by a viscus of their own. 
* Lip without lateral lobes or basal auricles. 
Lip coarsely erose from base to apex; rachis of inflorescence slender. 
. Apex of lip not lobulate; petals spreading, erose-dentate . . . 1. O. Prainiana. 
Apex with two short lobules separated by а rather wide sinus; 
Petals. reflexed, өлше... 22,22. КЖК 5 ANDE 
Lip quite entire or very slightly erose at the apex only; petals entire, 
кант. aaa 225 E 3. 0. pachyrachis. 
** Lip with narrow lateral lobes; terminal lobe not elongate. 
Axis of the raceme fleshy. | 
Lateral lobes of lip dentate; terminal lobe rounded, entire . 4. О. pachyphylia, 
