68 (AI.AXTHE. 



[lurplc ))(ir(lt'ri'(l witli wliitf ; sjnir obsolete. Coluiiiii while stained with 

 rose. 



Calanthe tricarinata, Lindl. Gen. et Sp. Orch. p. 252 (1S32). Fol. Orch. Cal. 

 No. 1 (1S54). Franch. et Sav. Eiium. I'l. jap. II. p. 26. 



First discovered by Wallich in Nepal, in the early part of the 

 present century, and many years afterwards by the Russian botanist, 

 Maximowicz, in Japan,* from which country it was introduced by us in 

 1879, along with Gcdanthe Textorii. It is by no means an inattractive 

 species, easily distinguished from every other cultivated Calanthe by 

 the absence of the spur of the labellum. 



0. veratrifolia. 



A robust plant with spreading ovate or oblong-lanceolate strongly 

 ribbed leaves, 18 — 24 inches long, that spring from a stoutish slowly 

 creeping rhizome. Scapes erect with an acuminate bract at each joint 

 and a smaller one at the base of each pedicel, and terminating above in 

 a dense corymbose raceme of white flowers. Flowers 2 inches in 

 diameter ; sepals obovate-oblong with a small green apiculus ; petals 

 obovate-spathulate, apiculate ; lip quadripartite, the basal lobes oblong, 

 spreading, the anterior lobes usually broader, but sometimes equal to 

 them, divergent ; callus tubercled, yellow ; spur slender, straight, half as 

 long as the ovary. 



Calanthe veratrifolia, K. Br. in Bot. Reg. 1821, sub. t. 573. Id. t. 720 (1823). 



Lindl. Fol. Orch. Cal. No. 25. Griffith, Ic. pi. Asiat. t. 283. Bot. 3Iag. t. 2615 



Benth. Fl. Anstr. A^I. p. 305. Fitzgerald, Austr. Orch. I. part 4. C. coraosa, Rchb. 



in Linniea, XIX. p. 374, ex. Hemsley in Gard. Chron. XIX. (1883), p. 636. 



C. Petri, Rchb. in Gard. Chron. XIV. '(1880), p. 326. C. coloians, Rchb. in Gard. 



Chron. XXIV, (1885), p. 360, Williams' Orch. AH. V. t. 218. C. australis, Hort. 



var. — macroloba.t 



Flowers larger, with the basal loV)es of the lip broader than in the 

 common form. 



C, veratrifolia macroloba, Rchb. in Gard. Chron. IX, (1878), p, 690. 



var. — Regnieri.t 



Flowers snow-white with a pale yellow lip, the basal lobes of which 

 are nearly semi-lunate, and the calli simpler. 



C, veratrifolia Regnieri, Rchb. in Gard. Chron. II. s, 3 (1887), p. 70. 

 Calanthe veratrifolia is the species upon which the genus was founded, 

 and the first Calanthe that was introduced into British gardens. The 

 earliest mention of it as a horticultural plant occurs in the Botanical 

 Regider for 1823, in which year it flowei-ed in Mr. Colville\s nursery 

 at Chelsea, whither it is believed to have been sent by Allan 

 Cunningham, from Sydney, along with Dendrobium specioswm and other 

 Australian orchids. It is spread over an immense region in the far East, 

 * !n grassy woods near Lake Conoma in the Island of Jesse. t Not seen by us, 



