Corzxso.— Descriptions of new Indigenous Plants. 827 
truncate, longitudinally and regularly striated, and finely corrugated trans- 
versely. Flowers, white, membranaceous, few, scattered, usually 2 (some- 
times only 1, very rarely 3) in a short loose raceme on a stoutish erect 
peduncle shorter than the leaves, always bursting at a right angle from the 
internode in the branchlet, and generally alternating with the leaves, never 
axillary nor opposite to a leaf; peduncle glabrous, shining, with 2-3 
rather distant sheathing bracts, truncate and obtuse; pedicels, 2-3 lines 
long, bracteoles sheathing, acute; perianth nearly 1 inch in diameter, open, 
expanding, segments of equal lengths; sepals, ovate-acuminate, 5-nerved, 
margins entire, upper one the smallest, the 2 lateral ones with a very small 
round spur at their base; petals recurved, oblong-ovate, obtuse, with a 
minute point, margins also entire; labellum 3-lobed, the 2 lateral lobes 
small, oblong, obtuse, conniving, margins finely notched; middle lobe 
large, longer than broad, veined, sub-rotund (or sub-panduriform or broadly 
obovate), apiculate, margin sub-crenulate with a slight notch on each side, 
sides conniving, and 4 longitudinal elevated and shining green (or yellow- 
green), lamella near the base, which are bluntly toothed or crested ; 
column slightly winged near apex, light green; pollen masses yellow. Ovary, 
2-8 lines long, green, shining, obscurely striate. 
Hab. In forests, Norsewood, Hawke’s Bay district, North Island, high 
up in the forks of pine trees (Podocarpus spicata), and sometimes on the 
ground in dry stony hills under Fagus trees, flowering in November ; 1879- 
. 1882; also among rocks near the sea at Cape Turakirae (the south head of 
Palliser Bay), 1845-6 : W.C. 
Obs. I.— The main branches of this plant are often very regular and 
spread out flat, bearing a bi-tri-pinnate frond-like appearance, from the 
side branchlets of equal length springing at about equal distances from the 
main stem; a few leaves on stout and strong young shoots are 14 inch 
long and 2} lines broad; the branchlets and peduncles shoot alike erum- 
pent at right-angles with the stem. Although I have (rarely) seen a 
raceme bearing 8 flower-buds, I have never seen one with all three open, 
the upper one seemed to be abortive; which is also often the case when 
there are but 2. In some flowers (on the same plant) the 2 lateral lobes and 
the extreme base of the middle lobe of the labellum, the throat and column, 
are dark pink; in a few others the same parts are slightly speckled with pink. 
Obs. II. —I have long known this plant, and, though I early obtained 
specimens with a few unopened immature flowers from the rocks at Palliser 
Bay in 1845, and subsequently assiduously sought for good flowering speci- 
mens, I never detected any such until 1881, when my long previous sus- 
picions of its proving to be distinct from. the northern form (D. cunning- 
hamii) were fully confirmed—I having well known and very often admired 
