SOME FLOWERS OF EASTERN AND CENTRAL AFRICA. 



II 



of our oldest, if not our first, cultivated species, grows in East 

 Griqualand by the edges of the streams in the valleys or lower 

 grounds. It is very handsome and showy growing thus in great 

 groups or bunches. My brother and I found a new and very 

 distinct species growing in a very different situation and msnner high 

 up on the mountains, and hanging among ferns over a little waterfall 

 (fig. 7). It was so large and bright that we both shouted and ran 

 towards it on seeing it simultaneously from different points. Its 

 colour is more orange than M. Pottsii ; the flowers are very much larger, 

 flatter, and more open; and it falls over, with the flowers clustering 

 all on the upper side after the fashion of an Odontoglossum, and standing 

 upright, almost at right angles to the stalk and hiding it, whereas 

 M. Pottsii grows almost upright, and the flowers spread out rather 

 flat on each side of the stalk, rather sparse, and leaving the stalk 

 very visible. The leaf, too, is quite different, much broader, and 

 sometimes from two to three inches across. I met nearly all the 

 botanists at the Cape and others elsewhere. No one had seen our 

 Montbretia, till I found it at last in the herbarium of the late Dr. Bolus, 

 now in the possession of his niece, formerly Miss Ken sit, and now 

 Mrs. F. Bolus. My brother and I found it on January 19, 1911. 

 Mrs. Bolus now referred to her uncle's diary, and there it was recorded 

 as found by him, in what seems to have been the very same place, 

 and almost on the same day of the year — January 20, 1896. He had 

 considered it a new species, and had sent a dried specimen to Kew, 

 where I looked it up on my return home. But it was so poor and 

 unrepresentative a specimen that it was taken for M. Pottsii, and I 

 could myself find little to distinguish it. My brother and I brought 

 some bulbs home to Umtata, and planted them in his garden there. 

 Next year one of them blossomed, and had become even finer ; it 

 was simply magnificent. My brother has written, since I returned 

 home, that it has flowered again this year, and has three sprays in 

 blossom. I sent some bulbs home, and hope that they are ccming 

 up at Cambridge, but it is not possible to distinguish them yet. Any- 

 how, I can get some more from my brother, and I anticipate that it 

 will be one of the most remarkable additions we have had for some 

 time to our garden list. I see no reason why it should not be hardy, 

 seeing that it grew on higher ground and in a colder situation than 

 M. Pottsii, which does so well in the open border here. 



The Dieramas, formerly called Sparaxis, have never been properly 

 classified and named. Only two names have been given to the group, 

 D. pendula (or cernua), with D. pendula var. pumila, and D. pulcherrima. 

 There are, besides, several other species in the Transkei, seme of 

 them of upright growth ; and there are specimens of some of them, 

 unnamed, in the herbarium at Kew. D. pulcherrima would seem to 

 have been so named from its bright pink colour, for it does not seem 

 to differ in any other respect from D. pendula. And the ' var. pumila ' 

 (fig. 9) is really a distinct species, with flowers much smaller and much 

 more numerous. My brother has a large plant of it with any number 



