Cotenso.— Descriptions of new Indigenous Plants. 829 
fureation, ending in two long and fine red tails 1} in. long, dorsal sepal 
with a very long red caudate apex much longer than the petals, and but a 
little shorter than those of the lower lip; petals somewhat falcate with a 
sharply produced abrupt angle on the upper edge, shortly acuminate and 
red-tipped, but without tails; labellum included, or but slightly exserted, 
oblong, emarginate, deflexed, 7 lines long, 3 lines broad, glabrous, mem- 
branous below and thickest at tip, striped green and white longitudinally 
with a dark red central line running towards tip, and there ending in a 
thick-red callus not extending to margin ; ‘appendix more than 2 lines long, 
curved upwards, flat, bifid, and rather largely fimbriate (not villous), fim- 
brie penicillate at tips; column taller than lip, wings large, each produced 
upwards in a long erect subulate point at the front angle, and downwards 
in an oblong auricle finely ciliated on the inner margins, white with a green 
transverse band. Ovary large, 1-11 in. long, sub-cylindrieal, green, strongly 
6-ribbed. Tuber large, white, rotund but much pitted and irregular, nearly 
an inch in diameter, resembling a very small and young round potato ; 
rootlets several and stout, some proceeding from the stem 2 in. above the base, 
Hab. In low forests, banks of streams descending from the east flank 
of Te Ruahine Mountain Range, 1847-1852; W. C.: also, in the forest at 
Te Aute, 1882; Mr. C. P. Winkelmann: and also in the forests at Hamp- 
den, 1882; Mr. S. W. Hardy: all localities in the Hawke’s Bay district, 
North Island. 
Obs. I.—A truly fine species having affinity with Pt. banksii (and long 
overlooked as belonging to it), but differing from that species in several 
important partieulars— such as “ Pt. banksii—leaves numerous, produced 
much beyond the flowers, narrow, grassy; lip linear narrow ; sepals and. petals 
produced into very long filiform tails "—FromaA N.Z.: and ‘‘ labelli lamina 
, 
obtusa "—Bnowx, LINDLEY, CUNNINGHAM, etc., ete. 
Obs. 11.— The whole of this truly natural genus, as represented in New 
Zealand, wants skilful revision from living specimens, or from good floral 
specimens preserved in spirits; particularly with reference to the forma- 
tion, etc., of the delicate wings of the column, which vary in the different 
species ; and which, while well worked-up by Sir J. D. Hooker in his Flora 
Tasmanie (and subsequently by Bentham in his Flora Australiensis), seems to 
have been overlooked in both the Flora N.Z.,and the more modern ** Hand- 
book." 
Orver IIl. IRIDE AE. 
Genus 1. Libertia, Sprengel. 
Libertia orbicularis, sp. nov. 
Rhizome and leafy base of stem very short; leaves almost radical, sub- 
erect, membranaceous somewhat sub-rigid in age, narrow linear-acuminate, 
