AucusT, 1917 } THE ORCHID REVIEW. 173 
Casey Taitey 
Cot RASS 
CYMBIDIUM of the C. alovifolium group has been sent for determin- 
ation from the collection of G. Hamilton Smith, Esq., Northside» 
Leigh Woods, Bristol. Formerly it would have been referred to C. 
aloifolium or C. pendulum, but both have been the subject of an almost 
hopeless confusion, involving several other names, so that the opportunity 
has been taken of comparing all the materials available. The initial 
difficulty lies in the fact that both the species mentioned were originally 
based on old figures, and that the names have been subsequently applied to 
different plants, as will now be seen. 
C. ALOIFOLIUM, Swartz (Nov. Act. Upsal., vi. p. 73), was based on 
Epidendrum aloifolium, L. (Sp. Pl., ed. i. p. 953), itself founded on the old 
figure, Kansjiram Maravara (Rheede Hort. Malabar, xii. p. 17, t. 8). Of 
this no original specimen is known, but there is one in Rottler’s Herbarium 
{now at Kew) which is labelled as identical, and which has all the 
characters of Rheede’s plant, and with that afterwards figured as C. 
aloifolium, Wight (Ic. Pl. Ind. or., t. 1687), a species collected at the foot 
of the Neilgherry Hills, S. India, and of which the original is preserved at 
Kew. C. erectum, Wight (l.c., t. 1753), from the Iyamally Hills, is 
probably a form of the same, as is clearly Aérides Borassi, Buchanan (Kees 
Cyclop., xxxix. n. 8), collected in Mysore. The species is South Indian, and 
there are also specimens from Madras, collected by Thompson, S. Concan, 
by Dalzell, N. Kanara and the adjacent Portuguese territory, by Richie, 
and Ceylon, by Thwaites and Mrs. Walker. These, with the exception of 
Rheede’s Malabar plant, are included under C. bicolor, Lindl., in the Flora 
of British India, while the name C. aloifolium is applied to a second species, 
including also C. pendulum. We find no evidence that the true Cy 
aloifolium, in which the front lobe of the lip is relatively long, narrow, and 
acute, has ever been in cultivation. 
C. Bicotor, Lindl. (Gen. & Sp. Orch., p. 164), was based on a Ceylon 
plant collected by Macrae, but Lindley wrongly included the Javan C. 
aloifolium, Blume (not Swartz) as a synonym. The species has since been 
collected by Thwaites and Mrs. Walker, and there are good drawings at 
Kew, also dried garden specimens, but we find no published figure, nor any 
evidence that it occurs outside Ceylon. The sepals and petals are light 
yellow, with a dark purple line down the centre, and the front and side 
lobes of the lip, also the column, dark purple. Itis easily distinguished 
from C. aloifolium by the relatively much shorter, broad, obtuse front lobe 
of the lip. 
CYMBIDIUM ALOIFOLIUM AND ITS ALLIES. 
