Ogrtopera.] obchide^e. (S. Moore.) 361 
inner face. Column elongate, semiterete, winged at the sides ; pollen- 
masses 2; caudicle short; gland transverse.— Terrestrial (sometimes 
leafless ?) herbs, with fleshy or bulbous stems. Leaves usually broad, 
membranous, many-nerved, often appearing after the racemes of 
flowers. Distbib. A small genus widely dispersed over tropical and 
subtropical regions, but absent from Australia and Polynesia. 
1. C. plantaginea, Lindl. Gen. and Sp. Orch. 189. Stemscreeping, 
fleshy, occasionally producing small bulbous enlargements. Leaves 
three to each plant, ovate-lanceolate, many-nerved, 7 in. long, nearly 
If in. broad, invested below by a scarious sheath. Scape erect, 
terete, 15 in. high, sparsely clothed with scales below the flowers ; 
bracts linear, acuminate, f-lf in. in long ; pedicels ascending, slender, 
together with the ovary 1 in. length. Sepals spathulate-oblong, 
obtuse, the lateral f in. long, the upper f in. shorter. Petals ascend- 
ing, broader and shorter than the sepals. Lateral lobes of the 
labellum rotundate, subentire ; mid-lobe ovate-oblong, obtuse, crisply 
undulate ; inner face with two central longitudinal raised lines 
developing into broad flat plates near the centre and becoming 
vermiculate on the mid-lobe. Produced base of column f in. long, 
broadly channelled ; pollen-masses subtriangular. Limodorum planta- 
gineum, Thouars, Orch. Afr. tt. 41, 42 ; Bojer, Hort. Maur. 313. 
Mauritius, the Ponce, Quartier Militaire, and Nouvelle Decouverte, Bojer. Known 
only from Bourbon and Madagascar, but inserted on Bojer’s authority. 
21. POLYSTACHYA, Hook. 
Sepals erect, the lateral larger than the lower and adnate to the 
produced base of the column. Petals smaller than the sepals, erect. 
Labellum posterior, adnate to the end of the column-base, more or 
less deeply 3-lobed. Column semiterete, much shorter than its 
horizontal produced portion ; pollen-masses 4, cohering in pairs, 
united by a linear caudicle to, or sessile on a small gland. — Caulescent 
or subacauleseent epipyhytes, the stem sometimes becoming bulbous. 
Leaves imbricate, scattered or solitary, fleshy or membranous. Plowers 
in terminal racemes or panicles, small. Distbib. The genus is repre- 
sented by a considerable number of species in the tropics (and occasion- 
ally subtropics) of both worlds, with the exception of Australia and 
the Pacific Islands. 
Leaves solitary, crowning the bulbiform stem. 
Panicle loosely divaricate. Labellum obovate . . . . 1. P. cultrata. 
Leaves more or less imbricate. 
Leaves 4-6 in. long. Panicle stiff, £-1 foot long. . . . 2. P. zeylanica. 
Leaves l£-3 in. long. Panicle rather lax, less than 2 in. 
long 3 P. FUSIFORMIS. 
1 P. cultrata^ Lindl. Lot. Leg. sub. t. 851 ; Gen. and Sp. Orch. 73. 
Stem 4-6 in. high, bulbiform, partially clothed with a single loose per- 
sistent scale. Leaves solitary, crowning the stem, broadly lanceolate, 
