ORCHIDS OF THE BOMBAY PRESIDENCY. 129 



The above is the description, written at the time of collection, of an orchid 

 found on the Divimona Ghat in North Kanara, before 1902, when my specimens 

 and drawings were destroyed by fire. The plants flowered at the beginning of 

 the rains. I lost these some years ago and have nevei had an opportunity of 

 collecting them again. Dr. Cooke, in his " Flora of Bombay " does not include 

 this genus in his account of Orchidacese. I have never been able to identify 

 the plant with any that are described or figured so that it is probably new. 



24. DIPLOCENTRUM. 



Epiphyte with a short, leafy stem. Leaves few, two-ranked, linear, 

 fleshy, unequally 2-lobed at apex. In florescence a pendulous raceme, 

 branched near the base. Flowers small, rather crowded, bracts 

 minute, pedicels and ovary short, sepals spreading, connivent at base, 

 lateral falcate, larger than the dorsal, all obtuse, petals shorter and 

 narrower than the dorsal sepal, acute, lip thick entire, fixed on the 

 base of the column, with two short blunt spurs, column short, thick 

 and blunt, 2-auricled, anther 2-celled, pollinia 2, ovoid, furrowed or 

 bipartite, attached by a broad strap to a broad gland. 



1. Diplocentrum CONGESTUM, Wight. Fl. Br. Ind., VI., p. 78 ; 

 T. Cooke, Fl. of Bombay, II, p. 704. 



Leaves in 2 or 3 pairs, recurved, about 3 inches long. Peduncles 

 stout, simple or with a few branches near the base. Floioers crowded, 

 especially so towards the tips of the spikes, each about \ inch in 

 diameter, bracts minute, triangular-ovate, pedicels very short, sepals 

 greenish brown, tinged with pink, lettered falcately oblong obtuse, 

 dorsal elliptic oblong, petals also greenish brown, tinged with pink, 

 lip pink suffused with brown, about \ inch long, fleshy, oblong 

 obtuse, column white, auricles pink. 



Floioers appear during the commencement of the rainy season. 



Distribution. — On trees in the forests of North Kanara and also recorded 

 from the Iyemally Hills in Travancore by R. Wight, who figured it in his 

 Icones, Plate 1682. 



It is a mean looking plant rising so little above the moss in which it grows 

 that it usually remains unnoticed. In Poona, where some plants were kept 

 alive for a few years the spikes became very short indeed. 



{To be continued.) 



17 



