56 SARCOCHILOS. 



SARCOCHILUS. 



R. Br. Prod. p. 332 (1810). Benth. et Hook. Gen. Plant. III. p. 575 (1888). 



The genus Sarcochilus possesses but a secondary interest for the 

 cultivators of epiphytal orchids, for although it includes several 

 beautiful species, these are so poorly represented in British collections 

 or are known under other names, that the genus is frequently over- 

 looked by amateurs, and altogether neglected in the popular orchid 

 hand-books. As reconstituted by Mr. Bentham in the Genera 

 Plantarum, it includes about thirty species, many of which had been 

 previously distributed among several genera,* the founders of these 

 relying chiefly upon the form of the labelluni and the habit of 

 the plant, which vary from species to species; but the discovery of 

 other species modifying the value of these characters, suggested the 

 propriety of uniting them all under one genus. 



The species now included in Sarcochilus are spread over India, 

 Malaysia, Australia, and the islands in the South Pacific Ocean. The 

 five described in the following pages are among the best known, 

 although not often seen in cultivation. The generic name is derived 

 from oapt, (TapKot;, ''flesh," and xrtXoc, "a Hp," in reference to the 

 fleshy texture of that organ. 



Sarcochilus Berkeleja. 



Stem as thick as an ordinary writing pencil, 3 — 6 inches high in plants 

 observed. Leaves spreading, .strap-shaped, 5 — 6 or more inches long, 

 obtuse or emarginate. Kacemes pendulous, longer than the leaves, the 

 rachis pale green, swollen at the base of the pedicels and grooved along 

 the interspaces. Flowers crowded, 1| inch across vertically, cream-white 

 ^vith a purple stain on the labellnm ; the dorsal sepal and petals broadly 

 obovate, the former concave, almost galeate ; the lateral sepals larger, 

 oblong, obtuse, spreading ; lip attached to the foot of the column, clawed, 

 saccate, compressed, three-lobed, the side lobes erect, falcately linear ; the 

 front lobe with two erect, horn-like processes above, and prolonged below 



* Thus : Dendrocolla, Blume, Bijtlr. p. 286. Thrixspennum, Lour. Fl. cochinch. II. p. 

 519. Omitharium, Lindl. in Paxt. Fl. Gard. I. p. 188. Micropeia, Dalz. in Hook. Kew Joum. 

 III. p. 282. Chiloschista, Lindl. in Bot. lleg. sub. t. 1522. Gunnia, Lindl. in Bot. Reg. 

 sub. t. 1699. Gamarotis, Lindl. Gen. et Sp. Orch. p. 219. Reichenbach (Walp. Ann. VI. 

 p. 497) brought under Sarcochilus nearly all the species included in the genus by Bentham, 

 but subsequently removed most of them to Thrixspermum (Xen. Orch. II. p. 120) as being 

 more ancient than Sarcochilus, a course Mr. Bentham did not adopt, ''on the very sufficient 

 grounds that the name is utterly bad in construction, and because the description of the 

 type is so incomplete that it would have been impossible to recognise the plant intended by 

 it.'' (Rot. Mag. sub. t. 7011.) 



