Colenso. — Descriptions of new Indigenous Plants. 329 



furcation, ending in two long and fine red tails 1^ in. long, dorsal sepal 

 with a very long red caudate apex much longer than the petals, and but a 

 little shorter than those of the lower lip ; petals somewhat falcate with a 

 sharply produced abrupt angle on the upper edge, shortly acuminate and 

 red-tipped, but without tails ; labellum included, or but slightly exserted, 

 oblong, emarginate, deflexed, 7 lines long, 3 lines broad, glabrous, mem- 

 branous below and thickest at tip, striped green and white longitudinally 

 with a dark red central line running towards tip, and there ending in a 

 thick red callus not extending to margin ; appendix more than 2 lines long, 

 curved upwards, flat, bifid, and rather largely fimbriate (not villous), fim- 

 briae penicillate at tips ; column taller than lip, wings large, each produced 

 upwards in a long erect subulate point at the front angle, and downwards 

 in an oblong auricle finely ciliated on the inner margins, white with a. green 

 transverse band. Ovary large, 1-1^- in. long, sub-cylindrical, green, strongly 

 6-ribbed. Tuber large, white, rotund but much pitted and irregular, nearly 

 an inch in diameter, resembling a very small and young round potato ; 

 rootlets several and stout, some proceeding from the stem 2 in. above the base. 



Hab. ■ In low forests, banks of streams descending from the east flank 

 of Te Euahine Mountain Eange, 1847-1852 ; W. C. : also, in the forest at 

 Te Aute, 1882 ; Mr. C. P. Wiriltelmann : and also in the forests at Hamp- 

 den, 1882 ; Mr. S. W. Hardy : all localities in the Hawke's Bay district, 

 North Island. 



Obs. I. — A truly fine species having affinity with Pt. banksii (and long 

 overlooked as belonging to it), but differing from that species in several 

 important particulars — such as " Pt. banksii — leaves numerous, produced 

 much beyond the flowers, narrow, grassy; lip linear narrow; sepals and petals 

 produced into very long filiform, tails" — Flora N.Z. : and " labelli lamina 

 obtusa " — Brown, Lindley, Cunningham, etc., etc. 



Obs. II. — The whole of this truly natural genus, as represented in New 

 Zealand, wants skilful revision from living specimens, or from good floral 

 specimens preserved in spirits ; particularly with reference to the forma- 

 tion, etc., of the delicate wings of the column, which vary in the different 

 species ; and which, while well worked-up by Sir J. D. Hooker in his Flora 

 Tasmania (and subsequently by Bentham in his Flora Australiensis) , seems to 

 have been overlooked in both the Flora N.Z., and the more modern " Hand- 

 book." 



Order II. IBIDEM. 

 Genus 1. Libertia, Sprengel. 

 Libertia orbicularis, sp. nov. 



Rhizome and leafy base of stem very short ; leaves almost radical, sub- 

 erect, membranaceous somewhat sub-rigid in' age, narrow linear-acuminate, 



