2 MR. W. FAWCETT AND DR. A. B. RENDLE ON 
John Crow Peak or from Vinegar Hill. The localities labelled Mabess River refer not 
only to its actual banks, but to points in its valley descending from John Crow Peak. 
Moy Hall (Ellen Aire) lies directly south of the Blue Mt. Peak. 
The Blue Mountains are clothed to the very summits with trees—Clethra tinifolia, 
C. Alexandre, Prunus occidentalis, Podocarpus Urbanii, Solanum punctulatum, Eugenia 
fragrans, Alchornea latifolia, and the tree-ferns Cyathea elegans, C. pubescens, C. con- 
cinna, Alsophila armata, A. parvula, A. aspera, and A. pruinata. The stems of trees 
and tree-ferns are covered with Mosses and Hepatic, amongst which grow species of 
Hymenophyllum and Trichomanes, of Polypodium and Asplenium, together with species 
of Pleurothallis and Lepanthes. This mass of epiphytic growth is generally dripping 
with moisture. 
Lepanthes is very closely allied to the much larger Tropical American mountain 
genus Pleurothallis, from which it is distinguished by the great development of the 
petals in the antero-posterior plane (they are generally several times broader than long) 
and in the union and close connection of the lip and column. 
'The plants are small, often minute herbs, and rarely exceed more than a few inches in 
height. The numerous slender, often filiform stems spring from a short rhizome, which 
is buried in the growth of moss, lichen, &c. attached to the bark of the tree on which the 
orchid is epiphytic. The moss-growth forms an efficient water-storing area, and is 
permeated by the numerous long slender roots of the epiphyte. 
Asin Pleurothallis, each shoot bears a single foliage-leaf, which springs more or less 
at right angles at the top of the stem and subtends the solitary or often numerous 
fascicled racemes. The stem is clothed throughout its length by a regular succession of 
narrow tubular sheaths, each of which ends in an obliquely trumpet-shaped mouth lined 
with a fringe of cilia; these sheaths are longitudinally striate and the projecting lines 
are often more or less hairy. The foliage-leaf is elliptical in shape, sometimes 
broadening to orbicular; the blunt or more or less acute or acuminate apex ends in 
three minute teeth, the base narrows into a scarcely perceptible stalk. 
The flowers are borne on the upper part of the thread-like flowering axis, in a lax few- 
flowered raceme, or crowded in two rows. They are evidently short-lived and fall very 
readily, so that in herbarium specimens they are frequently absent. Owing to their very 
small size and the often complicated structure of the petals and lip, they are very difficult 
to examine when once dried; the descriptions which follow have, with two exceptions, 
been drawn up with the help of living specimens. The sepals form the most conspicuous 
part of the flower; they are ovate in shape and united at the base, from which they 
spread horizontally : the two lateral sepals are united for a portion of their length, which 
varies in different species ; the tips are blunt or more or less acute, sometimes drawn out 
into short tails. 
. There is considerable variety in the degree of union of the two lateral sepals : in 
L. bilabiata their free portions are parallel, and they constitute an upper lip, which is 
opposed to the large concave median sepal and gives the flower its characteristic two- 
lipped form. 
The fundamental colour is yellow, but the sepals are often blotched, streaked, or 
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