328 Transactions. — Botany. 



and gathered that elegant species in its native forests, where it is often to be 

 met with. There is much however at first sight, and with only immature 

 flowering specimens, to confound this species with that plant ; indeed, it is 

 only by careful examination of several fresh specimens, dissection and com- 

 parison, that their specific differences are perceived, which are chiefly in 

 the labellum, its form and the number and size of its lamella? (which in 

 D. cunninghamii are always 5) ; the colour, too, of its flowers is widely 

 different, these are also smaller and much fewer in number, usually only 

 2 on a peduncle, and never assume the panicle form ; and also its dwarf 

 terrestrial habit. 



Obs. III. — I believe this plant to be identical with the D. biflorum of 

 A. Eichard, which was originally discovered by Lesson, the naturalist of 

 the French expedition under D'Urville, in Tasman's Bay, Cook Straits, in 

 1827, and published by Lesson and Eichard, with a very full description 

 and a folio plate, in 1832 ; and, therefore, I have great pleasure in naming 

 it after its original discoverer. That New Zealand species, however, was 

 confounded by them with D. biflorum of Swartz, (then a very little known 

 species, discovered by G. Forster when with Captain Cook in the Society 

 Islands), which species, though very nearly allied, bears only two lamellae 

 on its labellum. On E. Cunningham re-discovering* the Northern New 

 Zealand plant, (which now bears his name,) it was described by Lindley 

 with a plate,f as being quite distinct from the D. biflorum. of Swartz. 

 Lindley, however, believed Eichard' s New Zealand South Island plant to 

 be identical with Cunningham's North Island one, D. cunninghamii. And 

 I think that Sir J. D. Hooker, subsequently adopting Dr. Lindley's 

 opinion, also believed Eichard' s South Island plant to be the same as our 

 Northern one ; which it certainly closely resembles at first sight in many 

 particulars, although Eichard's life-size plate with dissections shows a 

 difference, particularly in its 4-crested labellum. 



Genus 12. Pterostylis, Br. 

 Pterostylis emarginata, sp. nov. 



Stem stout (nearly as thick as a goose-quill), erect, reddish (light brick- 

 red), 10-16 in. high, 3-4 scarious bracts below, leafy in the upper half; 

 leaves 6 in number, membranous, glabrous, shining, slightly spreading, 

 alternate, 5-7 in. long, i- in. broad, linear-acuminate, obscurely 2-nerved 

 longitudinally, a little shorter than the flower, sessile, vaginant, very stoutly 

 keeled, midrib thick 1 line wide, reddish. Flower membranaceous, striped 

 white and green, rather large, 2-2J in. long including tails of sepals but 

 excluding ovary, erect, lower lip of perianth ascending, \ in. broad below 



* It is said to have been originally discovered by Banks and Solander in 1769. 

 t Botanical Register, tab. 1756. 



