OcTOBER, 1906.| THE ORCHID REVIEW. "315 
TOWNSONIA DEFLEXA: A NEW GENUS OF ORCHIDS. 
In the recently issued Manual of the New Zealand Flora (pp. 691, 692), Mr. 
Cheeseman, publishes a new genus of Orchids, under the name of Townsonia 
deflexa, which was collected in the vicinity of Westport, near Nelson, in 
the South Island of New Zealand, flowering in November and December. 
He remarks that it is a very curious little plant, clearly allied to Adeno- 
chilus, of which it has the habit, but it differs in the smooth undivided lip, 
minute petals, and in the column wings not being produced upwards behind 
the anther. The smooth undivided lip also separates it from Chiloglottis, 
Caladenia, Burnettia, and other allied genera. “Believing it to form the 
type of a new genus,” he adds, ‘‘ I have much pleasure in dedicating it to 
its discoverer, Mr. W. Townson, of Westport, to whom Iam much indebted 
for specimens and information respecting the botany of the north-western 
portion of the South Island. It is a slender creeping plant, bearing a 
single radical petiolate leaf, with roundish blade, and a solitary or 2-flowered 
scape, three to six inches high, and greenish flowers. 
I believe it to be identical with an Orchid collected on Stewart Island 
by Mr. T. Kirk, F.L.S., in January, 1884. He remarks (Trans. N. Zeal. 
Inst., xvii. p. 224) :—‘‘ Two specimens of a small Orchid were obtained on 
the descent from Mount Anglem. It seems probable that they will form 
the type of a new genus closely allied to Burnettia and Chiloglottis.”’ One 
of these specimens was forwarded to Kew at the time, and was examined 
by Sir Joseph Hooker, who thought it to be a new genus near Chiloglottis, 
but nothing further was done with it, and no further examples se sai to 
have been met with. This specimen has all the characters mentioned by 
Mr. Cheeseman, and as Stewart Island is situated at the southern extremity 
of the South Island, a considerable distance away from Westport, it 1s 
likely that it exists elsewhere. It is not 4 conspicuous plant, and would 
easily be overlooked. 
It may be added that Mr. Cheesema 
New Zealand Orchids, belonging to twenty-one genera, 
- alone is endemic. 
n enumerates fifty-five species of 
of which Townsonia 
R. A. ROLFE. 
ORCHIDS IN THEIR NATIVE HABITATS. 
Way don’t you urge upon subscribers livi 
tribute occasional notes regarding t 
habitat? It seems to me such accounts are ™ 
oth i “now. 
ers so regard it I do not know J. C. Harvey. 
Vera Cruz, Mexico. 
