114 



SACCOT.ARIUM. 



it in the early part of the present century in the eastern tropical 

 Himalaya, where it was afterwards gathered by GriflSth and other 

 Indian botanists, and whence it was subsequently introduced into 

 European gardens. The earliest record we find of its flowering in 

 this country is in the Botanical Magazine, sub. t. 5326, where it is 

 stated to have flowered in the Royal Gardens at Kew in -the summer 

 of 1862. It was shortly afterwards imported by Messrs. Low and 

 Co., and thence became generally distributed among the orchid 

 collections of Europe. 8. curvifoUmn has the most richly-coloured 

 flowers in the genus ; although always of a bright red, they vary 

 in the shade of colouring from light orange-scarlet to deep cinnabar- 

 red. The flowering season is May and June. 



S. giganteum. 



Stem as thick as a man's forefinger, seldom exceeding a few inches 

 high under cultivation. Leaves broadly ligulate, 9 — 12 inches long and 

 2 — 3 inches broad, slieathing at the base, unequally two-lohed at the 



Saccolabium giganteum. 



apex, very leathery, bright green with paler longitudinal lines on both 

 sides. Racemes drooping, as long as the leaves. Flowers fragrant, on 

 short white pedicels, at the base of Avhicli is a small shrivelled bract; 

 sepals oval-oblong, white with a few amethyst-purple spots ; petals 

 narrower, oblong, acute, white Avith an apical-purple spot ; lip oblong, 

 undulate, produced backwards into a short funnel-shaped compressed s^xir, 

 and with three lobes at the free end, of which the lateral two are 

 rounded and the middle one narrowly oblong, bright amethyst-purple 

 with darker veins. Column green spotted with purple. 



Saccolabium giganteum, Lindl. Gen. et Sp. Orcli. p. 221 (1832). Bot. Mag. t. 5635 

 (1867). Jennings' Orch. t. 8. Williams' Orch. Alb. II. t. 56. Sander's Reichenhachia, 

 I. t. 22. Vanda densiflora, Lindl. in Paxt. FI. Gard. sub. t. 42 (1851). Id. Fol. 

 Orch. Vauda, No. 22 (1853). Gard. Chron. 1862, p. 1194. Van Houtte's i^^. des Serves, 

 XVII. t. 1765. Hook. f. Fl. Brit. Ind. VI. p. 53. 



