106 GENERAL REVIEW OF THE ORCHIDE.E. 



The first four Tribes are sub-divided into twenty-seven sub-tribes, 



often in reference to tlie vegetative characters of the included 



genera. These characters are stated under each sub-tribe that 



comes within the scope of this work and need not be repeated 



here. 



The number of genera diagnosed by Mr. Bentham is 334, the 

 authorship of which is thus analysed by Mr. Hemsley. 



Leaving- out S^vartz, Ruiz and Pavon, Kuutli, Dupetit-Thouars and 

 others wlio between them established a considerable number of genera, 

 the remaining genera retained by Bentham were founded by the 

 following authors, Lindley, 114; Blume, 50; Eobert Brown, 41; 

 Reichenbach, 20. The last number does not include about half-a- 

 dozen genera which Bentham had not seen and to which he was 

 consequently unable to assign places in his classification. Bentham 

 himself proposed only four new genera though he raised some of 

 Lindley's sections of Epidendrum to the rank of genera. How far 

 Lindley has left his mark on the genera of orchids may be gathered 

 from the above analysis from which it may be seen that he established 

 as many genera as Blume, Brown and Reichenbach together, or a 

 littlt^ more than one-third of the total number retained by Bentham. 

 The total number of names of proposed genera of orchids is about 770, 

 or more than douVjle the number adopted.* 

 Since the publication of the Orchide.e in the Genera Plantarum a 

 new classification has been worked out by Professor Pfitzer, of 

 Heidelberg, in Eugler and Prandl's Natiirlichen Pjianzenfannlien. 

 As this classification is not likely to supersede Bentham's, at 

 least in Great Britain and America, we need only note a few of 

 the changes proposed as indications of the tendency of the whole. 

 The number of genera is raised to 410 chiefly by adopting a large 

 number proposed by Reichenbach whose herbarium types are now buried 

 somewhere in Vienna ; by adopting some proposed by other authors 

 which Bentham had reduced to older genera or made sectional of them ; 

 and by a few proposed by himself. The fundamental divisions are those 

 of Lindley but reversed, viz. — I., Diandr.e, with two or three fertile 

 anthers, and XL, Moxaxdr^:, with only one, and more prominence is given 

 to these divisions than by Lindley, notwithstanding tlie immense disparity 

 between them as regards the number of included species. In the Diaxdrje, 

 Cypripedium is changed to Cypripedilum evidently for etymological 

 reasons ; it is also restricted to the terrestrial species of the temperate 

 zone. Selenipedium changed to Selenipedilum is retained only for two 

 curious species figured in Reichenbach's Xeiiia OrcMdacea, I. pi. 2 under 



* Gard. Chron. XX. (1883), p. 175. 



