Plate 16. 
CLOSE-ELOWERED ACINETE. 
Acineta densa . 
We owe our thanks to Dr. Lindley for the opportunity of 
figuring this fine Orchid, from a noble specimen grown by Mr. 
Lawrence, gardener to the Lord Bishop of Winchester, at 
Farnham Castle. The plant had been presented to his Lord- 
ship by Mr. Skinner, some years since, and, as we learn from 
Mr. Lawrence, had made several previous abortive attempts to 
produce blossoms, occasioned, as he believes, by its requiring a 
very strong bulb to enable it to perfect its densely set spike of 
large fleshy flowers. The specimen was in great beauty at the 
latter end of March last, when exhibited at a meeting of the 
Royal Botanic Society. 
In the pseudo-bulbs and foliage this species resembles A. 
Barken. The flower-scape is pendulous, about a foot long, and 
bearing about a dozen flowers, of which the terminal one opens 
first. The flowers are fleshy, at first of a w r axy or pale-greenish 
yellow, becoming of a clearer but pale and rather dull yellow 
as they become older; they are large, and have a strong aro¬ 
matic fragrance. The sepals are concave, the dorsal one ellip¬ 
tic, the lateral ones obliquely ovate, saccate at the base in front, 
spotless. The petals are of thinner texture, obovate acutish, 
thickly dotted over on the inside with red spots, having also a 
few dots on the outer surface. The lip is very fleshy in texture, 
Plate 16.—Acineta densa: racemes dense, oblong; the scape and ovaries 
dotted with minute black scales ; bracts about half as long as the ovaries; lip 
pouched or concave at the base, downy within, the metachil furnished with a 
pair of erect truncate side-lobes, and bearing a wart-like appendage, which is 
3-toothed with the posterior angle sinuated; the epichil linear-oblong, warted 
at the base; back of the column downy. 
Acineta densa, Lindley , Paxt. FI. Gard. i. 91. 
