22 



DENDROBIUM. 



Sent to us in 1866 from British Burmah by Colonel Benson, after 

 whose wife it is named at his own request. It occurs on the 

 mountains near Tongou, direct west of Prome, at an elevation of about 

 1,500 feet above sea level/ and spreads southwards as far as the 



Dendrobium Bensoniae. 



latitude of Moulinein. Ever since its introduction it has been 

 regarded as one of the finest of the white-flowered Dendrobes in 

 the section to which it belongs. The spots on the lip are variable, 

 being sometimes large and even confluent, sometimes not larger than 

 small peas, and in one sub -variety called xanthinum they are 

 altogether absent. Dendrobium Bensonice usually flowers in May and 

 June, and occasionally later. As regards its vegetation, two forms are 

 known in gardens, the original from the Arracan Hills, and the 

 other, with more robust stems, from the Kareen Hills. t 



D. bigibbum. 



Stachyobium — Speciosce. Stems cylindric or sub-fusiform, 12 — 18 inches 

 high, as thick as an ordinary writing-pencil, and furnished at their 

 upper part with 4—8 oblong-lanceolate leaves 3 — 5 inches long, persis- 

 tent about two years. Peduncles pseudo-terminal, slender, a foot or 

 more long, racemose along the distal half, many-flowered. Flowers 

 jl — 2 inches in diameter, magenta-purple, the lip of a deeper shade ; 

 sepals oblong-acute ; petals sub-orbicular, much larger than the sepals ; 

 lip three-lobed, the lateral lobes large, oblong, incurved, the intermediate 

 * Colonel Benson, in Gard. Chron. 1S70, p. 796. 

 t Major-General E. S. Berkeley, in Gard. Chron. III. s. 3 (1S80), p. 203. 



