9G 



ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



was no anther, there was no pollinarium, there was no free rostel- 

 lum to be found, and regarding the plant as a neighbour of Orni- 

 thoceplialus, we wanted a long beak or proboscis as of an elephant. 

 There was, moreover, no stigmatic cavity. At the place where ib 

 should have been I noted " foveam non reperio," and at the base of 

 the column I added " in fovea adest mucus." 



It was the first Orchid we had ever seen with a very long 

 dorsal sepal and very small lateral ones added to all the de- 

 ficiencies noted above, and we looked at each other as two com- 

 panion generals after a lost battle, and for the whole of the re- 

 mainder of the day Orchids appeared to us less agreeable than they 

 used to do. 



It was in the spring of 18G2 that Mr. H. Low sent me, amongst 

 other Brazilian Orchids, a little zigzag inflorescence with green 

 buds and green herbaceous glaucous bracts, very remarkable for 

 not being at all scarious. Mr. Low spoke most disrespectfully 

 in his letter of the little thing which I could not recommend suf- 

 ficiently to his care. Much later I got the expanded lovely 

 flowers, and both Mr. Low and Mr. Day were full of admiration 

 at the pretty little plant. Imagine a few distichous fascicled 

 lanceolate acute leaves two or three inches long, a quarter of an 

 inch broad, with a few thin aerial roots from the base, and a single 

 zigzag glaucous raceme full of green and yellow flowers of an 

 setherial texture, the base of the column and the lip spotted with 

 purple ; the dorsal sepal and the white petals forming a kind of 

 helmet over the column, the obtus-angular retuse toothletted lip 

 excavate and expanded, with a transverse callus at the base, the 

 two lateral sepals very short and spreading at right angles ; the 

 anther-bed denticulate, the long caudicle with a toothless process 

 under the pollen masses (toothletted, as observed by Mr. Pitch) ; 

 the anther beaked, the rostellum slightly prominent, but with no 

 free end, and the stigmatic hollow, indeed, at the base of the 

 column. I described the plant as Chytroglossa aurata in the 

 'Hamburgh Gartenzeitung ' of M. Otto, 1863, p. 545. 



The species observed in Dr. Lindley's ' Herbarium ' I named 

 C. Marileonice, in just and due acknowledgment of Mademoiselle 

 Marie Leonie's merits as regarded the plant. I distinguished it 

 by its three-lobed lip, and a two-starred callus at its base. Not 

 much later I received it also from Mr. Low, his excellent col- 

 lector, Mr. Blunt, having gathered it at the same place where it 

 had been first discovered. 



There are two very nice representations prepared for this 



