lOS 
POLYSTACHYA LUTEOLA. 
Pale-flowered Polystachya. 
GYNAKDRIA MONANDRIA._Nat. Ord. ORCHIDEJE. 
Gen. Char. — Petala resupinata, conniventia, duobus superioribus basi unitis 
gibbosis duobus interioribus multo niinoribus. Lahellum articulatum, 
sessile. Anthem operculiformisj libera. Massce Pollinis quatuor, hemi- 
sphaericas, ceracege, pedicello glanduloso affixae. 
Polystachya luteola. 
Dendrobium polystachion, Swartz, De Orchid, p. 95. — Willd. Sp. PI. 
V. iv. p. 137. — LiNDL. Coll. But. t. 20. 
Cranichis luteola, Sw. Ind. Occ. v. iii. p. 1433. 
Epidendrum minutum, Aubl. PI. Guian. 
Root composed of several thickish, white, flexuose, simple fibres. Stem none. 
Leaves two in number, from three to five inches long, lanceolate, obtuse, 
obscurely striated, attenuated at the base, and springing from a small 
bulb, which is ovate and covered at its base, where it is fixed upon the 
fibres, with brown membranaceous scales. 
Scape about seven inches in height, much compressed, two-edged, and cloth- 
ed with a long membranaceous sheath, bearing at the extremity five or 
six racemes or spikes of small, pale green, resupinate * flowers, which 
have each a minute lanceolate bractea. Peduncle or rachis about an inch 
long, beset with as many teeth-like bracteas as there are flowers. The 
three outer segments of the corolla are subconnivent and green, the two 
outermost ones much the largest, broadly ovate, united at the back, and 
very gibbous above, somewhat open in the front, one-nerved, the lower- 
most one narrow, standing forward. The two inner segments very nar- 
row, linear, pale green. Lip yellowish, articulated with the decurrent 
base of the column, obovato-oblong, standing forward, concave, downy 
within, three-lobed at the extremity, the two lateral lobes small, straight, 
the intermediate one broad, curved back, waved. Germen rather longer 
than the flower, subclavate, furrowed. Column very short, its base de- 
current with the back of the two superior petals, and thus uniting them. 
• Or, more properly speaking, not resupinate. In most orchideous plants, the la- 
bellum is on the underside of the flower ; but this position, as Mr Brown has justly 
remarked, is owing to a twist in the germen. Here the germen is in its most natural 
position, and the lip is uppermost. 
VOL. II. 
