214 
LEAVITT. 
to distinguish between several closely related species which now present them- 
selves in Java and the Philippines. J. J. Smith (Orch. Java 402) therefore 
discards the species, provisionally, with the remark: “Was E. aeridostachya 
anbelangt, welche auch in diese Section gehort, so is die Bieschreibung so 
oberflachlich, das sie fast alle Arten der Section passt.” He distinguishes three 
Javan species, one of which he surmises is the same as the original E. Aeri- 
dostachya of Lindley. 
The type of the species, if in existence and well preserved, should identify 
this species even in default of verbal description. Lindley’s Loddiges plant is 
the type. This specimen is in the Lindley herbarium at Kew and is perfectly 
serviceable. Through the kindness of the curator I was permitted to boil out a 
flower and to make camera lucida drawings, which are reproduced herewith. 
(Fig. 1.) The following notes and measure- 
ments may help to improve the definition of 
the species : 
Type in the Lindley herbarium at Kew, 
marked “Batavia, Loddiges,” consisting of a 
single leaf and a not fully developed inflores- 
cence. A drawing of the lip, evidently from 
the living flower, by Lindley, is attached to 
the sheet. Length of oblanceolate leaf (not 
entire) 27 cm, width 2.7 cm. Inflorescence 
with peduncle 26.5 cm long. Raceme (not 
fully expanded) 12 cm long, up to 2.7 cm in 
diameter. Peduncle 3 mm thick. The whole 
inflorescence short- woolly pubescent, or tornen- 
tose. Pedicel and ovary, from rhachis to base 
of mentum, 9 mm in fully developed flpwers. 
Mentum making a large angle (up to 90°) 
with ovary, 4 mm long. Dorsal sepal concave, 
ovate, nearly 4 mm long, 2.5 mm broad 
when spread out. Lateral sepals 3 mm long 
measured perpendicularly from column-foot to 
blunt apex. Petals ligulate, curved, round at 
apex, 3.5 mm long, 1.25 mm wide. Lip oblong 
when spread, scarcely acute, 5 mm long, 2 
mm wide. Column-foot 5.5 mm long, nearly 
straight, lanceolate, the upper half concave, 
with raised edges which meet below and above run up on sides of column. 
Column scarcely 1 mm high, at right-angles with foot. 
Inasmuch as the appellative Aeridostachya is attributed by Lindley to Reichen- 
bach, it is of interest to know what this author meant by the designation. In 
the Gray Herbarium at Cambridge, Massachusetts, there is a Seemann specimen 
of the number cited in the Flora Vitiensis, and labeled E. Aeridostachya in 
Reichenbaclr’s hand. The flowers are rather old, but the specimen throughout 
agrees very well with Lindley’s: and thus again we escape ambiguity. 
There would now seem to be no reason for discarding E. Aeridostachya. 
The species of this section are often very close together. Indeed, several of 
the species, though doubtless very distinct in life, are separated by differences of 
such a nature that the published descriptions suffice to distinguish them, in the 
dried state, only with difficulty. The description of E. falcata J. J. Smith (Orch. 
Java 404) fits almost perfectly the representations which I have of E. Aeri- 
dostachya, and Smith is very likely right in thinking that E. falcata is the species 
