328 G. King & D. Prain — New species of Renanthera. [No 3, 



On a new species of Renanthera. — By G. King and D. Prain, Royal 

 Botanic Garden, Calcutta. 

 [Read July, 3rd.] 

 Some years ago Lieutenant E. J. Lugard sent to the Calcutta 

 Herbarium, for identification, some dried flowers and a living plant of 

 what was evidently a species of Renanthera. The living plant unfor- 

 tunately soon died in the uncongenial climate of Calcutta; the dried 

 flowers were, however, sufficient to show that the plant probably 

 belonged to a species near R. coccinea, Lour. Last year Lieutenant 

 J. B. Chatterton was kind enough to send several plants of the same 

 orchid to the Calcutta Garden, which were promptly transferred to the 

 more suitable climate of the Cinchona Plantation in Sikkim. These 

 plants flowered a few weeks ago and there is now no doubt that they 

 belono- to an undescribed species which from the resemblance of its 

 flowers to the extended wings of a brilliantly coloured butterfly we now 

 name R. Papilio. For a description of the flowers, drawn up from 

 living specimens, we are indebted to Mr. R. Pantling, of the Cinchona 

 Plantation, who has also made a beautiful coloured drawing of the plant. 



Renanthera Papilio, n. sp. King and Prain. Leaves loriform, 

 2 to 25 in. long and about '5 in. broad ; their apices blunt and 

 unequally lobed. Inflorescence 9 to 10 inches long, laxly racemose, or 

 rarely panicled, on stalks of about equal length or longer, the bracts 

 small, the stalked ovary about 1 in. long. Dorsal sepal linear-oblong, 

 contracted below the blunt sub-cucullate apex, - 75 in. long. Lateral 

 sepals twice as long as the dorsal, narrowly elliptic, flat, with undulate 

 edges the inner margins touching above the slender twisted claws ; the 

 apices sub-acute and divergent. Lateral petals *5 in. long, spathulate, 

 slightly incurved. Lip with acuminate-side lobes each with a small 

 rouuded basal auricle, the middle lobe broadly ovate, concave, its apex 

 acute and pointing forwards, the base auricled. Spur short and blunt, 

 with two expect toothed divergent plates near its mouth. Column 

 minutely ciliate behind the anther ; stigma with a thin deflected trans- 

 parent lip. 



Assam. 



The colour of the flowers is a brilliant scarlet with a tinge of lake. 

 The toothed plates of the spur end abruptly at the base of the middle 

 lobe of the lip and immediately in front of their termination there are 

 three blunt tooth-like processes. In its habit and the colour of its 

 flowers the species resembles R. coccinea, Lour., but the flowers are 

 larger and the lobing of the lip and the shape of the lateral sepals are 

 very different. 



