66 CALANTfiE. 



which have been greatly multiplied during the past few years by means 

 of hybridisation. 



The genus as at present circumscribed includes about forty species 

 that are widely distributed over the tropical and sub-tropical regions 

 of the Eastern hemisphere, and occurring also very sparingly in 

 Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies. The Calanthes are 

 most numerous along the lower Himalayan zone from Assam to Nepal, 

 and again in Java and the neighbouring islands. Northwards they 

 spread into Japan, whose flora includes four or five species, and 

 southwards as far as Sydney in New South Wales, which is the 

 southern limit of G. veratrifoUa. The genus is represented in South 

 Africa by the beautiful G. natalensis, in Mauritius by G. sylvaHca, 

 in the Socisty and probably other islands of the Pacific Ocean by 

 C. gracillima. 



The essential characters of Calanthe consist chiefly in the labellum being 

 almost always spurred, three-lobed, with the middle lobe notched, and 

 its claw being adnate to the column, forming either a cylindric tube, or a 

 broadly turbinate cavity beyond which the column is very rarely produced. 

 The poUinia are eight, in groups of four each ; each group is furnished 

 Avith a short caxidicle or bipartite gland.* 

 Dr. Lindley distributed the Calanthes into two sections, " according 

 as the spur of the labellum is elongated, or short or quite obsolete, 

 but the distirction is vague, and not confirmed by more recent obser- 

 vation."! A more natural sectional division may be made by separating 

 the epiphytal or sub -epiphytal species of which G. vestita is a well- 

 known type, from the terrestrial species of which G. veratrifolia is one 

 of the best known representatives. The most obvious characteristics 

 of each section may be thus stated : — 



VbstiT/E. Pseudo-bulbs more or less elongated, angulate, covered with 

 a grey-green reticulated, membraneous sheath. Leaves large, plicate, 

 deciduous. Inflorescence hairy, loosely racemose ; bracts usually large, 

 inflated and as long as the ovaries. 



To this section belongs Limatodes rosea, Lindl. and L. labrosa, Rchb. ; 

 also L. graci/p, Lindl. not in cultivation ; these differ from Calanthe 

 vestita chiefly in the base of the lip not being adnate to the column, 

 although enfolding it. The typical Limatodes jjauci flora of Blume, and 

 one or two other species, none of which are in cultivation, are now 

 referred to Phaius. 



* The appendages or caudicles of the polUnia resemble the stipes of the Vandese, but they 

 evidently develop from the pollen itself, and not from the rostellum. 



+ Bentham in Jour. Linn. Soc. XVIII, p. 309. 



