spatSoglottis. 



in perfection at one time ; pedicels (including ovary), 2 — 2| inches long, 



pale purple, at the base of which is a conspicuous oval, acute, concave, 



cream-coloured bract. Flowers 2 inches across ; sepals and petals white, 



the sepals elliptic-oblong, acute, concave, keeled behind, the petals similar 



but larger, slightly undulate, not keeled; lip three-lobed, the side lobes 



oblong-obtuse, turned upwards and inwards, pale red-brown ; the middle 



lobe obcordate, emarginate with a long linear claw at the base of 



which is a large, bi-lobate, bright yellow callus, below which are two 



depressed whitish lobules dotted with red. Column clavate, arched, 



terete above, white sometimes tinted with rose. 



Spathoglottis Vieillardi, Rchb. in Linnaea, XLI. p. 85 (1877). Bot. Mag. t. 7013. 

 S. Augustorum, Rchb. in Limlenia, I. t. 25 (1886). Gard. Chron. XXV. (1886), 

 p. 335. 



First discovered by MacGillivray, naturalist to Captain Denham's 



voyage to the Pacific Ocean, in 1853, in the Isle of Pines, one of 



the New Caledonian group of islands, and subsequently gathered in 



New Caledonia by the French botanist whose name it commemorates, 



and from whose specimens it was described by the late Professor 



Eeichenbach in the serial quoted above.* It was introduced into 



European gardens by MM. Auguste Linden and Auguste de Ronne 



in 1885 — 86, while collecting plants for the Compagnie Continentale 



d' Horticulture de Gand from the Sunda Isles (?) it is said, but a 



locality so vaguely stated is misleading, and from its remoteness 



from New Caledonia, the known habitat of the species, its presence 



there was hardly to be anticipated. From the published account of 



one of these travellers in the Gardeners' Chronicle loc, cit., we 



gather that the plant occurs on a mountain, at an elevation of 



1,200 — 1,300 feet at the bottom of a gully surrounded with rocks, 



where it occupies shaded and damp retreats. 



Bot. Mag. sub. t. 7013. 



