CTMBIDIUM. 11 



genera^ the characters of which, from want of sufficient information, 

 and the knowledge of a greater number of species, cannot be 

 positively made out."* During the existence of the Botanical Register, 

 Lindley removed many of the anomalies as materials came to hand, 

 and many years later Reichenbach, in Walper's Annales Botanices 

 Systematicce, did much to reduce the genus to more natural limits. 

 Et remained for Mr. Bentham to circumscribe it as it now stands, 

 the principal change made by him being the removal of Lindley's 

 Gymhidium elegans and G, Mastersii to the Cyperorchis of Blume. 



The essential characters of Cymbidium are thus tersely stated by 

 Sir J. D. Hooker:— t 



Sfe77i very short, rarely elongate, and pseudo-bulbous. Leaves very 

 long, narrow, and coriaceous, rarely short. Scape loosely sheathed ; 

 flowers often large, in sub-erect or drooping racemes. 

 Sepals and petals sub-equal, free, erect or spreading. 

 Lip sessile at the base of the column and embracing it upwards, 

 base concave, side lobes erect, mid-lobe recurved; disk with usually 

 two pubescent ridges. 



Column long and not produced into a foot ; anther one- or im- 

 perfectly two-ceUed ; pollinia 2, deeply grooved or 4, sub-globose or 

 pyramidal, sessile on the broad strap or gland. 

 About thirty species are known to science, by far the greater 

 number of which are dispersed over the Indo-Malayan region and 

 tropical Australia, ascending to 5,000 — 6,000 feet on the Khasia Hills, 

 and even higher on the Himalaya of Nepal and Sikkim ; outlying 

 species occur in Japan and New Caledonia. Some of the cultivated 

 species are well known for their stately aspect and the imposing 

 dimensions they attain. 



Cultural Note. — The roots of Cymbidium are thick, fleshy and freely 

 produced, ample pot-room should thence be pro\'ided for their develop- 

 ment ; they should also be allowed good drainage by means of broken 

 crocks to not less than one-third of the depth of the pot. The 

 compost should consist of fibrous loam and rough peat in the pro- 

 portion of two-thirds of the former and one-third of the latter, many 

 cultivators using in addition a little silver sand to assist drainage, 

 and some use chopped living sphagnum in the place of rough peat. 

 For those species whose habitat is on the Khasia Hills and the 

 Nepalese Himalaya — C. Devonianum, C. ehurneum, C. giganteum, etc. — 

 an intermediate temperature is found to be most suitable, while the 



* Gen. and Sp. Orch. p. 161. 

 t Flora of British India, vol. VI. p. 8. 



