LALIA MONOPHYLLA. 
[PLate 395. ] 
Native of the Mountains in Jamaica. 
Epiphytal. Rhizome slender and branched, from which rises numerous stem-like 
growths ; these attain a height of some six or ten inches when strong, each bearing on 
the summit a single, somewhat coriaceous leaf, which is narrowly oblong, from two to 
three inches in length, and deep green. Scape as long, or longer, than the leaf, 
one-flowered ; individual flowers nearly two inches across; sepals and petals spreading, 
nearly equal, oblong, acute, bright orange-scarlet ; Jip minute, three-lobed, the side 
lobes erect, standing up beside the column, but not enclosing it; front lobe yellow, 
with numerous smal] protuberances on the disc. Colwmn purple at the tip. 
Laiia_ monopnyiia, N. £. Brown, Gardeners’ Chronicle, xviii., 1882, p. 782; 
Botanical Magazine, t. 6683; Williams, Orchid-Grower’s Manual, 6 ed., p. 363; 
Veitch’s Manual of Orchidaceous Plants, ii., p. 76. 
TrIGONIDIUM MONOPHYLLUM, Grisebach, Flora of the British West Indies, p. 629. 
OcTADESMIA MONOPHYLLA, Bentham, Genera Plantarum, iii., p. 526. 
The majority of the species of Lelia take rank amongst the finest of the Orchid 
family, but in this genus, as in most other genera of Orchidaceous plants, some few 
species occur which have but small flowers; even these small-flowering kinds are 
interesting, and most of our readers will like to see them represented in the pages of 
the OrcHip AtBum. Indeed, connoisseurs, as a rule, greatly admire them, and the plant 
whose portrait we here lay before our readers is a veritable gem. Lelia monophylla is 
by no means a plant new to science, it having been first discovered in Jamaica, some fifty 
years ago, by the late Dr. Bancroft, whose name is familiar to us from the very 
beautiful species of filmy fern from the West Indies which bears his name ( Tricho- 
manes Baneroftii). His discovery was communicated to the late Sir William Hooker, 
but no living plants came at that time to this country. It was again found some few 
years ago by Mr. D. Morris, then Director of Gardens and Plantations in Jamaica, but 
now Assistant-Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. It was also found on 
St. Andrew’s Mountains about the same time by Mr. G. Syme, late Superintendent of 
the Botanic Gardens in Jamaica. Plants from these discoveries reached this country 
in a living state, and the first plant flowered at Kew at the end of the year 1882. 
Since then a somewhat large importation of the plant has come to hand, but few of 
the examples, however, survived. It has no pseudobulbs to support it, and hence it : 
becomes quite a task to import it in a vigorous condition. 
