284 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [SEPTEMBER, 1903. 
The latter remark proved prophetic, and so little is the plant known 
that I had not previously seen even a dried flower. Lindley only knew it 
from the original description and figure. It is a handsome species, and it 
is to be hoped that it will not again be so completely lost sight of. 
R. A. ROLFE. 
MEGACLINIUM PLATYRHACHIS, 
THIS very remarkable species has now appeared in cultivation, a plant 
sent from Zomba, which has just flowered at Kew, proving identical with 
the original dried specimen from which the species was described (Rolfe in 
Fl. Trop. Afr. vii., p. 43). The original specimen, by the way, was very 
imperfect, and the description can now be supplemented in several 
particulars. The pseudo-bulbs are oblong, hexangular, somewhat com- 
pressed, 2 to 24 inches long by 7 to g lines broad, and diphyllous. The 
leaves are oblong, coriaceous, and 3 to 4 inches long by 1} inches broad. 
The inflorescence is very remarkable, the flattened rachis being from Io to 
16 lines broad, ultimately attaining a length of g to 10 inches, and bearing 
about fifty flowers on each side. It is crenulate and undulate at the 
margin, and the colour is light yellowish green, with innumerable whitish 
and dusky brown dots. The flowers are from two to three lines apart, and 
the colour greenish, dotted and speckled with dark brown. The lip is 
fimbriate at the base, and the petals falcate-lanceolate, which places it next 
to M. Imschootianum, Rolfe, in the systematic arrangement. Its affinity 
was previously doubtful. The rachis of this genus is a remarkable 
production, the wing-like extension continuing to develop as_ the 
inflorescence elongates, and the flowers follow on in succession. Thus there 
is a steady development of the wings upward, and a constant succession of 
flowers, as the rachis gradually elongates. The use of this wing-like 
extension is not known, but it may possibly help to render the inflorescence 
more conspicuous. 
R. A. KR. 
1 
DENDROBIUM x STATTERIANUM. 
A COMPARISON of a living flower of the plant known as Dendrobium 
Phalznopsis var. Statterianum with those of the typical form and of D. 
bigibbum, from the collection of J. J. Neale, Esq., of Penarth, again raises 
the question of what is the exact rank of the former. It appeared in 1889, 
in the establishment of Messrs. F. Sander & Co., at St. Albans, among an 
importation of the typical form, and was figured and described in 
Reichenbachia (ser. 2, i, p. 15, t. 7). It was said to have rather smaller and 
