30 
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O28. 
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Dr Trimen, the present Director of the Botanic Garden at Peradeniya, states 
that this handsome Orchid is becoming very scarce, and will soon be extinct, 
but it is to be hoped that steps may be taken to prevent the occurrence of such a 
calamity. Ceylon has not a large number of handsome native Orchids, and the 
extermination of the best of them can surely be prevented if proper steps are 
taken before too late. 
The stems are about eighteen to twenty-four inches long, of the thickness 
of a goose-quill, greyish white, with somewhat swollen blackish nodes, and 
linear-lanceolate acute leaves of three to four inches long. The flowers have a 
somewhat singular flattened appearance, and are borne in few-flowered pendu- 
lous racemes from the upper nodes. The sepals and petals are rosy mauve, 
suffused with white, the latter being sometimes striped along the middle with 
amethyst purple. The lip is nearly rhomboid in shape, convolute at the base, the 
colour delicate mauve-purple, striped with deep purple in front, and with a 
white zone surrounding the maroon-purple disc. In cultivation it generally flowers 
during June and July. 
R. A. Ro re. 
“ 
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