Colenso. — Descriptions of new Indigenous Plants. 327 



truncate, longitudinally and regularly striated, and finely corrugated trans- 

 versely. Flowers, white, membranaceous, few, scattered, usually 2 (some- 

 times only 1, very rarely 3) in a short loose raceme on a stoutish erect 

 peduncle shorter than the leaves, always bursting at a right angle from the 

 internode in the branchlet, and generally alternating with the leaves, never 

 axillary nor opposite to a leaf ; peduncle glabrous, shining, with 2-3 

 rather distant sheathing bracts, truncate and obtuse ; pedicels, 2-3 lines 

 long, bracteoles sheathing, acute ; perianth nearly 1 inch in diameter, open, 

 expanding, segments of equal lengths ; sepals, ovate-acuminate, 5-nerved, 

 margins entire, upper one the smallest, the 2 lateral ones with a very small 

 round spur at their base ; petals recurved, oblong-ovate, obtuse, with a 

 minute point, margins also entire ; labellum 3-lobed, the 2 lateral lobes 

 small, oblong, obtuse, conniving, margins finely notched ; middle lobe 

 large, longer than broad, veined, sub-rotund (or sub-panduriform or broadly 

 obovate), apiculate, margin sub-crenulate with a slight notch on each side, 

 sides conniving, and 4 longitudinal elevated and shining green (or yellow- 

 green), lamelke near the base, which are bluntly toothed or crested ; 

 column slightly winged near apex, light green ; pollen masses yellow. Ovary, 

 2-3 lines long, green, shining, obscurely striate. 



Hab. In forests, Norsewood, Hawke's Bay district, North Island, high 

 up in the forks of pine trees (Podocarpus spicata), and sometimes on the 

 ground in dry stony hills under Fagus trees, flowering in November ; 1879- 

 1882 ; also among rocks near the sea at Cape Turakirae (the south head of 

 Palliser Bay), 1845-6 : W.C. 



Obs. I. — The main branches of this plant are often very regular and 

 spread out flat, bearing a bi-tri-pinnate frond-like appearance, from the 

 side branchlets of equal length springing at about equal distances from the 

 main stem ; a few leaves on stout and strong young shoots are If inch 

 long and 2 J lines broad ; the branchlets and peduncles shoot alike erum- 

 pent at right-angles with the stem. Although I have (rarely) seen a 

 raceme bearing 3 flower-buds, I have never seen one with all three open, 

 the upper one seemed to be abortive ; which is also often the case when 

 there are but 2. In some flowers (on the same plant) the 2 lateral lobes and 

 the extreme base of the middle lobe of the labellum, the throat and column, 

 are dark pink ; in a few others the same parts are slightly speckled with pink. 



Obs. II. — I have long known this plant, and, though I early obtained 

 specimens with a few unopened immature flowers from the rocks at Palliser 

 Bay in 1845, and subsequently assiduously sought for good flowering speci- 

 mens, I never detected any such until 1881, when my long previous sus- 

 picions of its proving to be distinct from the northern form (L>. cunning- 

 hamii) were fully confirmed — I having well known and very often admired 



