TRICHOPILIA. 177 



TRICHOPILIA. 



Lindl. Nat. Syst. Bot. ed. II. p. 446, and Bot. Reg. sub. t. 1863 (1836). Rclib. Xen. Orch. 

 II. p. 98 (1865). Benth. et Hook. Gen. Plant. III. p. 559. 



Trichopilia includes about fifteen species ; two of tliem, T. laxa 

 and T. fragrans, were constituted a separate genus by Lindley under 

 the name of Pilumna,* but as they possess no definable characters 

 by which they may be technically distinguished from the older 

 genus Trichopilia, they were referred to it both by Eeichenbach and 

 by Bentham. Eeichenbach also added Helcia sanguinolenta,\ an 

 orchid discovered by Hartweg on the Ecuadorean Andes, and to 

 which Lindley had given separate generic rank in the erroneous 

 belief, derived from an examination of the dried specimen of the 

 discoverer and therefore perfectly excusable, that the column and lip 

 were attached in a manner difierent from Trichopilia which is not 

 the case. Mr. Bentham followed Eeichenbach in including Lindley' s 

 Helcia in Trichopilia, and he also referred another so-called monotypic 

 form to the same genus, Eeichenbach's 01iveriana,+ detected by 

 Wallis near Medellin in New Granada, not known in cultivation, but 

 which appears to possess all the essential characters of Trichopilia. 

 The genus as now circumscribed is well distinguished by the 

 following floral characters : — 



The sepals and petals are nearly equal and similar, narrow in 

 proportion to their length and in a few species, spirally twisted. 



The lip is large, more or less funnel-shaped (obscurely so in 

 Trichopilia sanguinolenta and T. hymenantha), and projecting forwards 

 mostly at a right angle to the other segments ; the short ungius or 

 claw and the small basal lobes are adnate to the column. 



The column terminates in a curious hood-like appendage that is 

 more or less toothed (ciliate-dentate) but sometimes lobed. 

 In their vegetation the Trichopilias are dwarf plants with an 

 inconspicuous rhizome, so that the pseudo-bulbs are usually more or 

 less crowded. 



The pseudo-bulbs are often elongated and nearly flat ; they are 



always monophyllous. The leaves are but a few inches long, leathery 



in texture and dark green. The peduncles are usually pendulous and 



few-flowered, rarely erect. 



The geographical area over which the species are dispersed is, 



• Bot. Reg. 1844, misc. No. 74. t Xen. Orch. II. p. 106. 



X Linnaia, XLI. p. III. 



