Notices of new and interesting Platits. 23 



" Bulb as large as a swan's egg, bearing green sword-shaped leaves, nearly a yard long and six inches 

 broad. The flower-stem springs from the base of the bulb ; is four feet high ; and bears at its extremity 

 a raceme a foot in length of large, yellowish white, almost globose, fleshy flowers, yielding a peculiar 

 fragrance, which somewhat resembles that of the English iViiphar ltitea. In Panama, the plant is 

 called El Spirito Santo (the Holy Spirit), and its blossoms show why : the centre of the flower 

 exhibits a column which, with its summit or anther, and the projecting gland of the pollen masses 

 together with the almost erect wings, bears a striking resemblance to a dove, the emblem of the third 

 person in the Trinity. El Spirito Santo was therefore applied by the same people, and in the same reli- 

 gious feeling, as dictated the naming of the Passion Flower. 



3412. CERATOCHrLUS. 



oculatus Lo. C. eyed ^ 23 or 1 jn Y.spot Xalapa 1829. D p.r Bot cab. 1764 



The flowers are pendulous, curiously formed, fragrant, and sprinkled over with innumerable spots 

 most of which are annular. Near the base of the lip are two very large ones, like eyes, which add' 

 greatly to the elegance of the flower. 



2563. SARCA'NTHUS. 



guttatus Lindl. jg 23 el 1 ap W.V.Ro Dacca 1818. D p.r.w Bot. reg. 1443 



Aerides guttatum Roxb. MSS. 



A lovely epiphyte, with a stem a foot or more in length ; depending in its native habitat, the vicinity 

 of Dacca, from the branches of trees ; but in the Chiswick Garden " is cultivated in the stove, in a 

 very hot damp atmosphere, in a pot full of moss, suspended from the roof by a wire, and a little over- 

 shadowed by climbing and other plants : " thus treated, it flowers in April. Leaves a foot in length, 

 channeled ; but, when spread flat, an inch broad ; of a shining green. Racemes longer than the leaves, 

 drooping, solitary. Flowers numerous, approximate, pretty large; colour, a beautiful mixture of red 

 and white spotted. 



2540. ONCI'DIUM. 



bicornutum Hook, two-horned £ 23 el 1 jn Y.Br Brazil 1830. D p.r.w Bot. mag. 3109 



A very beautiful Brazilian species, whose slender scape, scarcely longer than the leaves, is sur- 

 mounted by a large and dense panicle of showy flowers, their ground colour being deep yellow, which is 

 striped, mottled, and spotted with purple red. 



O. pumilum. Its blossoms, marked with various colours, are minute, but very numerous, and, when 

 closely inspected, highly pleasing. {Bot. Cab. 1732., Oct. 1831.) 



*2530«. CORYA'NTHES Hook. Helmet-flowck. (Kon/s, helmet, anthos, flower; shape of appendage to lip.) 

 maculata Hook. spotted-lipped ^ 23 spl lfjn Y.p Demerara 18'.'9. D p.r.w Bot. mag. 3102 



The Coryanthes maculata of Hooker is a superb stove orchideous plant, newly introduced from the 

 forests of Demerara, where it grows on the trunks of trees : it blossomed in June, 1831, in the Liverpool 

 Botanic Garden. " Bulbs clustered, scape 1J ft. long, pendulous from the weight of the numerous, very 

 large, blossoms ; of these, the petals are of a pale ochraceous yellow colour, the lip and its appendage 

 more inclining to yellow, the lalter, which is large and shaped like a helmet, tinged at the margin, and 

 spotted inside with purple." Each bulb (or pseudo-bulb Lindl.) is two-leaved. 

 Dr. Hooker refers to this genus also the Gongbro specibsa Hook. Bot. Mag. 2755., and Gongbra 

 . macrantha Hook. Bot. Miscellany, 80. ; but, as to the name of this genus, Coryanthes, seems to have 

 overlooked its inadmissible nearness to the orchideous genus Corysanthes of Brown : if so, it is a 

 notable instance of an appropriation of the same idea and terms by which to express it, by two men 

 unaware of each other's intentions : an almost parallel instance obtains in Necker's euphorbiaceous 

 genus Pedilanthus, which Mr. Haworth had simultaneously or previously in MS. distinguished and 

 denominated Crepidaria; Necker choosing Greek, and Mr. Haworth Latin, to express the slipper-like 

 shape of the involucre.- 



Orchidece \ Epidendretc. 

 25S2. BRASAVO^L^. 



nodosa Lindl. knotty £ □ fra 1 o Ysh.G Mexico 1828. D p.r Bot. reg. 1465 



Fills the woods at night with its fragrance ; grows freely in a hot damp stove, among moss, in decayed 

 vegetable matter." 



OrMdea? § Malaxidece. 

 2575. MICRO'STYLIS. 



versicolor Lindl. changeable jg? [Z3 cu 1 jn.o O China 1830. D p.r Bot. cab. 1751 ' 



2539. PLEUROTHA'LLIS. 



Lancenrta Lo. C. Lance's _£f 23 cu | au Y.g Surinam 1831. D p.r Bot. cab. 1767 



Lfparis priochllus B. C 



'In Orchidese, the following are promising to flower, some of them strongly, in a stove at Colvill's, 

 under Mr. Riath's skilful management : — Oncidium altissimum, ltiridum, and carthaginense ; Bonatca 

 specibsa, Cypripedium venustum, Eulbphia gracilis, and Pholidot?. jamaicensis. Epidendrum cochlea- 

 tum is in blossom ; and Neottia speciusa shows flowers, and is already beautiful in its conspicuous spike 

 of red and sheathing bracteas. At Young's, Spiranthes procera is (Jan. 20.) in blossom. At Malcolm's 

 (Jan. 10.), in a cold damp green-house, Goodyera discolor was thriving perfectly ; and its delicate white 

 blossoms, produced in spikes 6 in. long, contrasted pleasingly with its dark-hued leaves; beside it stood 

 the G. tessellata with its foliage so elegantly variegated. Liite in November last, Cattleya labiata 

 flowered finely with Mr. Campbell at the Comte de Vandes's. How exquisitely elegant is this species! 

 Cypripedium insi'gne flowered there also early in December. 



On the propagation of the stove Orchidea? some remarks occur in the present Number, p. 88., and it 

 will be here in place to remark the peculiar manner in which some plants of this order are grouped at 

 Colvill's. A crooked trunk of an oak tree rises from the floor and is fastened to the rafters of the roof, 

 and to this are affixed, with nails, the husks of cocoa-nut shells, so thickly, as completely to hide the 

 oaken trunk : the interstices between the nut-shells are filled with soil and moss, in which the orchi- 

 deous epiphytes are planted. 



c 4 



