June, 1915.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 189 
Smith's Gold Medal, to Wm. Thompson, Esq.; gardener’s prize to Mr. 
. Howes. : 
Society’s Gold Medal, to Z. A. Ward, Esq. 
Society’s Gold Medal, to F. A. Hindley, Esq. 
_ A number of prizes have been offered for competition during the coming 
session, due notice of which will be given; and it is hoped that gentlemen 
will send their exhibits as usual, to keep up the interest in the Society. 
| 
ANY years ago the late Baron Ferdinand von Mueller, Director of 
In the Melbourne Botanic Garden, wrote an article entitled ‘‘ The 
smallest Orchid in the World”? (Gard. Chron., 1879, ii. p. 817), which may 
be summarised as follows :— 
More than twenty years ago.the late Mr. W. S..McLeay showed the. . 
writer a very minute creeping Orchid from the vicinity of Port Jackson, 
highly remarkable for its extremely small disc-like leaves. The little plant 
in Mr. McLeay’s conservatory was at the time not in flower, nor could 
subsequently any flowers be obtained, as the plant seems to have been lost. 
He told me, however, that he had examined it in a flowering state, and had 
found it to be a Dendrobium. The plant was lost sight of until very 
recently Mr. Fawcett rediscovered it at the Richmond River, and forwarded 
fruiting specimens. At my request this zealous investigator of the 
Richmond River vegatation secured at last the flowers of this pigmy 
plant, which prove it to be a true Bulbophyllum, to which the name B. 
minutissimum is now given. The leaves are sessile, on a creeping rhizome, 
often forming bead-like series. The leaves are orbicular, flat, horizontal, 
and only one-eighth or one-sixth of an inch in diameter. Thus this Orchid 
has the smallest leaves of all in the whole order. Indeed, seeing the plant 
creeping among the mosses, the observer might take it for a species of the 
Hepatice. The flowers are singly produced on peduncles hardly longer 
than the leaves, while the wee red flowers measure also only one-sixth of an 
inch. The affinity of this Bulbophyllum is with B. lichenastrum, but its 
dimensions are much less, and the disc-like leaves are thinly cartilaginous 
and adnate in the centre. 
In a subsequent note (/.c. 1880, i. p, 790), an extract from a letter 
detailed the circumstances of its discovery by Mr. McLeay: “I obtained it 
in a ravine at the back of Rushcutters Bay, Port Jackson, where it was 
almost within the reach of the 
The locality has since been 
ay 
cy MINUTE BULBOPHYLLUMS. 
growing on sandstone boulders in moss, 
drip from the overhanging rocks above. 
desecrated by the march of suburban improvements. 
