lONOPSIS. 131 



bright cinnabar-o range ; li[) oblong-lanceolate.j acuminate witli incurved 

 undulate margins and recurved apex, about three-quarters as long as 

 the sepals, white except the very fleshy, linear, thickened callus which 

 is deep orange and extends from the base to near the apex, and on 

 each side of which is a recurved white hook. Column short, dull yellow 

 with a pair of large auricles at the base." — E. A. Rolfe in Gard. 

 Chron. X. s. 3 (1891), p. 34. 



Ada Lehmanni, Rolfe in Gard. Chron. loc. cit. 

 " Introduced to Europe by Mr. F. C. Lehmann, the German 

 Consul in tlie Republic of Colombia, and first brought under notice 

 in September, 1888, by Mr. James O'Brien, of Harrow, who sent 

 it to Kew for determination. It is a very distinct species, distinguished 

 from Ada aurantiaca by its more rigid habit, shorter, broader and 

 darker green leaves which are everywhere marbled with grey, and 

 by its white lip; it is also a decidedly summer-flowering plant." 



lONOPSIS. 



Humboldt et Kuntli, Nov. Gen. et Sp. I. p. 348, t. 83 (1815). Bentli. et Hook. Gen. 

 riant. HI. p. 567 (1883). 



A genus of dwarf epiphytes with small, narrow, stiffish leaves 

 produced in tufts of threes and fours from a creeping i-hizome, and 

 with loose panicles of small but very pretty flowers. The following 

 characters described by Lindley, distinctly limit the genus : — 



The sepals and petals are short and erect, of which the twn lateral 



sepals form a small bag ; the lip is long, reflexed at the u})p(n' half 



and furnished at the base with four processes, of which t^vo are thin 



membraneous auricles within the edge of the lip, and two much more 



fleshy calli within the auricles themselves.* 



The species, however, are not so clearly defined, for although nine 



have been published, it is highly probable that most of them are 



only varieties of two or three widel}'' dispersed types that are spread 



over tropical America, including the West Indies, from Mexico to 



Brazil. The genus was founded by Humboldt and Kunth on lonopsis 



pulchelh', which was discovered by the great traveller in northern 



Colombia, near Cartagena, and which is still but imperfectly known 



to science. The name is compounded of t'oi-, "a violet," and oxptij, 



" the appearance," but why so selected, is not at all clear. 



* Folia Orchidacca, lonopsis, paj^e 1. 



