40 ^YGOPETALUM. 



another genus is proposed for its reception. The process may be 



repeated for a third and even for a fourth species^ and so on. 



This is precisely what has happened with species now included in 



the genus under review. 



About the year 1826 Mr. Mackay, of the Trinity College Botanic 

 Garden, Dublin, introduced from Brazil a beautiful and now well-knoAvn 

 orchid which, on flowering, he submitted to Sir William Hooker, who 

 found it so unlike any described species in the stnicture of its flowers 

 that he had no hesitation in founding upon it the genus Zygopetalum. 

 Some years later another orchid was discovered in British Guiana by 

 Schomburgk, and a specimen was sent l)y him to Mr. Bateman, Avho 

 named it Hunt.leya sessiliflora* but did not publish a diagnosis of his 

 ncAv genus. Lindley subsequently referred other species to Bateman's 

 Huntleya, including H. Meleagris, which was the first that was 

 figured and described, and is thence the type species of that group, 

 and H. violacea figured in his Sertum Orchidaceiwi. But as these 

 two species differ somewhat from each other in the characters of the 

 labellum and column, Eeichenbach removed them from Huntleya, referring 

 the first to Lindley's Batemania,t and founding upon the second his 

 own genus Bollea. 



Then followed the discoveries of Warscewicz in Central America, 

 some of which were constituted a ncAV genus by Reichenbach under 

 the name of Pescatorea, and others under the name of Warscewiczella ; 

 and besides these Lindley referred other species to Warrea which 

 diverge from the type species of that genus far more than they do 

 from that of Zygopetalum. Thus a series of genera were founded, all 

 bearing an evident relation to each other, but which on first examination 

 seemed to be sufliciently distinct from each other to require a separate 

 generic nomenclature. As new sj^ecies came to light from that 

 apparently inexhaustible treasury of orchid life, the tropical region of 

 Central and South America, the original lines of demarcation were 

 much obliterated, and Zygopetalum, Huntleya, Bollea, "Warscewiczella, 

 Pescatorea, Warrea (in part) and Batemania (in part) became a confused 

 gToup of genera, the limits of each of which could not be clearly 

 determined. So long ago as 1863 this unsatisfactory classification became 

 so evident that Eeichenbach, when compiling his synopsis of the 

 Orchidb^ for Walper's Annales Botanices, merged nearly all of them 

 into Zygopetalum, including also his own genus Kefersteinia and 

 Lindley's Promensea. The propriety of this course was strengthened 

 \)j subseqiient discoveries, so that when Mr. Bentham undertook the 

 revision of the Orchide^ for the Genera Plantarum he unhesitatingly 



* It is quite uncertain what this plant is ; bv some it is supposed to be Huntleya violacea 

 (Liudl.). 



t Lindley's type species is still retained under Batemania. See infra. 



