200 NEW AND RARE SPECIES OF MALAYAN PLANTS. 



was not the A. chinensis, BL, 1 was puzzled to know how it was 

 that Blume had not noticed this common species, but rather 

 to my surprise I found that the big pink bambusifolia is en- 

 tirely absent from the Malay islands, and that the common 

 plant in Java and Borneo is the A. speciosa of Bl. Blume's 

 descriptions of his two species A speciosa and A. chinensis 

 are too incomplete to be of much use in identification. A. 

 speciosa, BL is a short plant usually about 2 feet tall some- 

 times more, with white sepals and petals and a white lip with 

 a distinct yellow centre patch and a pink tip to the lip. The 

 flowers are much smaller than in .4. bambusifolia. The colour- 

 ing varies a little, in the plants in Java the tip of the lip is 

 very pale mauve, and the plants I had from Setul in the 

 north of the Malay Peninsula, and from Sarawak are identical. 

 The plant which grows on precipices of Kedah Peak differed 

 in having the side lobes streaked with brown, the 2 keels on 

 the disc were sometimes connate and the tip of the lip crimson. 

 Y^ery closely allied are A. philippii and Megeniana of Echb. f. 

 and I suppose these are the A. chinensis, Bl. which has puzzled 

 everyone by Blume's statement that it has 5 keels on the lip, 

 a thing I have seen in no Arundina flower. In dried speci- 

 mens however, it is quite possible to mistake the outer nerves 

 which are then visible for real keels. Blume's plant chinensis 

 was, he thought, introduced from China. The Hong-Kong 

 plant has a remarkably deep crimson broad tip to the lip, and 

 the petals and sepals a purer white, and another difference 

 between it and speciosa, Bl. is that it, like bambusifolia, does 

 not produce bulbils. In A. speciosa, bulbils are borne on the 

 sides of the stem especially after the flowers have been cut; 

 these lateral buds have a swollen base about .25 in. through 

 and a stem with leaves like the main stem. They are easily 

 detached and pushed into the ground soon become good sized 

 plants ; so easy is the propagation of this plant that it is much 

 the commonest in gardens in the Straits. The plants also 

 often bear more than one raceme at the top. 



A. speciosa is not common in the Malay Peninsula. It has 

 been obtained at Setul, and used to be abundant as a garden 

 escape or planted on the railway banks near Kuala Lumpur. On 

 Kedah Peak, it grows on the northern precipices, and I shall 

 never forget my collecting it there. Just between me and it 

 was a large patch of grassy turf, on which I was just about to 

 step when an old Sakai or half-bred wild tribe man who ac- 

 companied me pulled me back and gave a kick to the turf 

 which immediately slid off completely and fell about 3,000 ft. 

 into the forest at the foot of the mountain. Had I stepped 

 on it I should certainly have gone with it. 



Jour. Straits Branch 



