NOTICES OP NEW AND RARE PLANTS. 
69 
description. The pseudo-bulbs are small, lenticular, very pale green bodies, from 
one end of which springs an oblong-, firm, smooth, veinless leaf. From the 
opposite edge of the pseudo-bulb there rises a raceme of flowers, about six inches 
long, the base of which is protected by brown, narrow, imbricated scales. The 
number of flowers in each raceme is from fifteen to twenty. The bracts are, for the 
size of the flowers, rather large, broad, ovate, a little stem clasping, very pale 
green, and stained with crimson at the points. The three sepals are narrow, and 
taper to a point, pale green externally, chocolate brown in the inside. The petals 
are minute slender-pointed scales, shorter than the column, and not discoverable 
without disturbing the sepals. The column is dwarf, and terminated in part by two 
long curved horns. The anther is a little round lid, beautifully studded with 
crystalline points. The lip is one of the most extraordinary objects known even 
among orchideous plants ; it is a long, narrow, flexuose, sharp-pointed body, 
closely covered with a yellow felt ; just within its point there is a deep, purple 
beard of exceedingly fine compact hairs ; on the under side, at a little distance from 
the point of the lip, is another such beard ; and besides these there is, at the end of 
the hp, a brush, consisting of very long purple threads, so excessively delicate, that 
the slightest disturbance of the air sets them in motion, when they wave gently to 
and fro, like a tuft of thread cut from a spider's web ; of the last mentioned hairs, 
some are of the same thickness throughout, others terminate in an oblong club, so 
that when the hairs are waving in the air — and I do not know that they are ever 
at rest — a part float along gracefully and slowly, while the others are impelled by 
the weight of their glandular extremities to a more rapid oscillation. Nor is this 
all ; the lip itself, with its yellow felt, its two beards, and its long purple brushes, is 
articulated with the column by such a very slight joint, that to breathe upon it is 
sufficient to produce a rocking movement, so conspicuous and protracted, that one 
is really tempted to believe that there must be something of an animal nature 
infused into this unplant-like production. 
Messrs. Loddiges possess another species, with similar habits. 
NOTICES OF NEW AND RARE PLANTS 
IN FLOWER IN THE LEADING NURSERIES AND PRIVATE GARDENS IN THE 
VICINITY OF LONDON. 
Messrs. Hej^derson's, Pine-Apple Place. Epacris variabilis. This is an 
extremely beautiful and somewhat rare species of Epacris, and, though not equal 
to E. impressa in the richness of the colour of its flowers, is nevertheless superior 
to it in point of delicacy, as its beautiful little flesh-coloured blossoms are so per- 
fectly formed, and the stamens being of a brown colour, and disposed just round the 
mouth of the corolla, give the whole a most pleasing effect ; it is, like most of its 
allies, a very free flowering plant, and a remarkably fine plant of it is now flowering 
in great perfection at the above nursery. Azalea Lidica.—A very handsome plant 
