2 DENDROBIUM. 



These common characters as seen in the flowers of Dendrobium 

 may be thus summarised : — 



Tho sepals are nearly of equal length, the dorsal one free, the lateral 

 two adnatc to the foot of the column, and forming with it in some 

 species a short gibbous chin ; in others a longer or shorter spur. 



The petals are generally of the same length as the sepals, but some- 

 times longer, often much broader, rarely narrower. 



The lip is more or less contracted at the base into a claw, lying 

 upon, or adnate to the foot of the column. 



The column is produced beloAV the point of attachment to the ovary 

 into a kind of foot, the portion above the ovary being very short. 



The pollinia are 4, of waxy texture, oval or oblong, compressed and 

 lying parallel within the anther case. 



The capsule is ovoid or oval-oblong, rarely elongated.* 



Although the above diagnosis holds true, as far as it goes, for 

 the whole genus, yet in consequence of the great diversity of form, 

 especially in the vegetative organs, into which the genus has 

 developed throughout the vast region over which it is spread, a 

 diversity that can be but very inadequately comprehended from an 

 inspection of the cultivated species even in the largest collections, 

 it is found necessary, for scientific purposes, to divide it into sections, 

 each distinguished by some leading peculiarity or feature observable 

 in the species brought under it. Dr. Lindley, the first who attempted 

 a systematic synopsis of the genus, proposed ten sections, in which 

 he is chiefly followed by Mr. Bentham, but who reduces them to 

 seven, subdividing the two largest of these into sub-sections. Of the 

 seven sections of Bentham, the five undivided ones, which are, com- 

 paratively speaking, but small groups, are almost solely of scientific 

 interest, scarcely a type or included species being known as cultivated 

 plants in other than botanic gardens, and very few have ever been 

 thought worthy of being figured. They are : — 



1. Aporum,! including about twelve species chiefly Malayan; of these, 

 Dendrobium anceps, figured in the Botanical Magazine, t. 3608, is one. 



* Abridged from Bentham and Hooker. There are many deviations from the form of the 

 fruit above described, e.g., in Dendrobium Dcarei it is prismatoid. 



+ This and the following sectional and. sub-sectional names, like many other terms used in 

 botany, have been called into existence by the exigencies of science, and are, for the most part, 

 arbitrary coinages from the Greek and Latin languages, whose meaning is sometimes obscure, 

 but which have been framed, to meet the case to which they are applied. Thus Aporum is 

 uTTfHiy, "impenetrable/ 1 "impassable," in reference to the localities, \isually dense jungle, in 

 which the included species are found ; it is the name of a genus founded by the Dutch botanist, 

 Blame, on a Javanese species, but which, with its allies, was afterwards merged by Lindley 

 into Dendrobium. KiiizoniUJi is from pl%a, "a root," and ftioc. "life," in reference to the 



