120 BRASSIA. 



orchids. But although the flowers of most of the Brassias are of 

 a homely and inattractive hue, there are not wanting forms in which 

 strong colour contrasts are present^ as in Brassia Antherotes and 

 B. Keiiiana tristis ; and in most of the cultivated species the flowers 

 are more or less pleasantly fragrant. 



The botanical relationship between Brassia and Miltonia has been 

 already stated. * Its affinity to Oncidium is also very close, from 

 which, as Lindley long since pointed out, " there is nothing in 

 reality that separates it except its very short earless column and 

 entire bilamellate lip combined with elongated • lateral sepals/' t 

 Nevertheless, there is a distinctness in the inflorescence by W'hicli 

 the species can be recognised as Brassias at a glance, and which 

 affords characters sufficiently definite to admit of the genus being 

 retained. These characters may be expressed thus — 



The scapes are always racenied and of a definite length, compavahle 

 Avitli that of tlie leaves; tlie bracts are short and inconsi)icuous in all 

 the cultivated species, except in Brassia Keiiiana. 



The sepals are long, linear, acuminate, ami often tail-like. 

 The petals are similar, hut shorter and narrower, and are [ilaced either 

 at a small angle to the dorsal sepal or turned towards it in a falcate 

 manner. 



The lip is sessile at the base of the short wmgless column, entire, 

 usually flat, bilamellate at the base, and about the same length as 

 the petals. 



The vegetative organs of the Brassias conform nearly to the Miltonias 

 and to many of the Oncidiums; the pseudo-l)ull)S are mono-diphyllous, the 

 leaves below them in the new growths are few, the lowermost being 

 reduced to scales. 



The genus was founded by Dr. Eobert Brown on Brassia 

 maculata, and named in commemoration of Mr. Brass, a skilled 

 botanical draughtsman who collected seeds, plants, and dried 

 specimens on the Guinea coast and in South Africa for Sir Joseph 

 Banks and others in the early part of the present century. Upwards 

 of twenty species have been published, some of which are but little 

 known, and in others more definite characters are wanting by which 

 they may be technically distinguished from each other.J They are 



* See page 95. 



t Folia Orch. Brassia, p. 1. In Walp. Ann. VI. p. 765, Reiclienbacli has brought all 

 the Brassias under Oncidium. 



X Some of the Brassias hitherto regarded as species ajiproach each other so closely in 

 structural details that they have been surmised to be geographical forms of one widely 

 dispersed type. 



