[Plate 40.] 



THE BLUE VANDA. 



( VANDA CCERULEA.) 



A Stove Epi2)hyte, from Woods on the Khasya Hills of India, belonging to Orchids. 



Specific Character. 



THE BLUE VANDA. — Leaves distichous, leathery, equal-ended, truncate, with a concave notch and acute lateral lobes. 

 Spikes close, erect, many-flowered. Bracts oblong, concave, very blunt, membranous. Sepals and petals light 

 blue, membranous, oblong, very blunt, flat, with a short claw. Lip leathery, deep blue, linear oblong, obtuse at the 

 point with two diverging lobes, three plates along the middle, and a pair of triangular acuminate lobes at the base. 

 Spur short, blunt. 



Vanda coerulea : Griffith MSS. : Lindl. in Bot. Beg., 1847, sub t. 30. : No. 1284, Griffith, Itinerary Notes, 88. 



THIS glorious plant, perhaps the noblest of the Indian race, was called Vanda coerulea by- 

 Mr. Griffith, who found it among the Khasya or Cossya Hills, and sent us dried 

 specimens. Its flowers are as large as those of Vanda teres, and the foliage is as good as 

 that of Aerides odoratum. 



" The leaves of this wonderful plant are five inches long by nearly one inch wide; at 

 their end they are two-lobed equally, and each lobe is sharp-pointed, so that the end looks as 

 if a piece had been struck off by a circular punch. The flowers grow in upright spikes. A 

 piece of a stem but four inches long bears four such spikes, which are from six to nine inches 

 long, and carry from nine to twelve flowers. Each dried flower is between three and four 

 inches in diameter, and if allowance is made for their having shrunk in drying, they may be 

 estimated as at least a foot in circumference. The lip is, as is usual among Vandas, small ; 

 it is barely three-quarters of an inch long, narrow, with a short spur and a two-lobed point. 

 Its surface is broken by three deep parallel perpendicular plates, and the lateral lobes of the 

 base are triangular and acuminated." 



