pains, while holding the office of H. B. M. Consul General at Mexico, to enrich our gardens and herbaria with the choicest vegetable productions of that interesting region. This, the finest of the very fine Genus EPIDENDRUM, we wish to bear his name, in testimony of his botanical exertions, and we know that, could the late noble possessor of the gardens at Woburn express his mind, it would at once respond to our wishes and sanction its adoption.

DESCR. Stem elongated, rounded, branched, partially sheathed with a greyish, delicate membrane. Leaves three on our specimen of which the lowest is a span or more long, in shape linear or oblong-lanceolate, remarkably thick, (one-fourth of an inch in thickness,) between fleshy and coriaceous, rather obtuse at the apex, on the upper side having a depressed, central line, and a fainter one of the kind on the underside. The middle leaf is a little longer than this, somewhat acuminated, the acumen carinated and grooved: the upper leaf is almost a foot and a half long, the base (for about four inches) deeply carinated, the rest with the sides closely complicated and tapering into a long and very narrow point. The base of this leaf gives rise to a large, membranous, sheathing bractea, and within this is a short stalk bearing two to three large and very handsome but scentless flowers, nearly four inches across. Sepals and petals similar, linear-lanceolate, much acuminated, spreading, dingy or brownish-green. combined with the column, deeply three-lobed, orange, lateral lobes half-cordate, slightly erose, the middle one longer than they, linear or lanceolate and acuminate. At the base of the lip are two conspicuous, parallel glands. The column is short, dilated upwards: the anther-case hemispherical, four-celled. Pollen-masses four, flattened, each doubled upon its own short stalk.

Lip

the

Fig. 1. Column, from which the free portion of the lip is removed, just above the two glands. 2. Anther-case. 3. Pollen-masses :-magnified.

Cal. 5-partitus, æqualis. Cor. oblique bilabiata, labio superiore latiore et longiore bifido, inferiore trifido; tubo trigono. Stam. 2. Anthera bilocellatæ, locellis parallelis contiguis demum hastato-divergentibus muticis. Staminum duorum sterilium rudimenta exilia in quibusdam observantur. Stigma simplex, acutum. Capsula compressa, bilocularis, loculis superius tetraspermis. Retinacula seminibus subjecta.-Inflorescentia: racemus terminalis v. lateralis, simplex v. triplex, spiciformis, floribus verticillatoquaternis, bractea bracteolisque binis conformibus angustatis elongatis. Corolla speciosa, lutea aut fulva. Folia supra minute papulosa. Nees.

Specific Character and Synonyms.

PHLOGACANTHUS curviflorus; caule erecto quadrangulari striguloso-tomentoso, foliis amplis ellipticis utrinque acutis repando-dentatis glabris, corolla elongata. Nees in Wall. Pl. Asiat. Rar. v. 3. p. 99.

JUSTICIA curviflora. Wall. Pl. Asiat. Rar. v. 2. p. 9. t. 112. Wall. Cat. n. 2429. a. b.

DR. WALLICH Communicated living plants of this fine plant, which NEES VON ESENBECK justly characterizes as Speciosi

* So named by Professor NEES VON ESENBECK, from oλ.§, a flame, and axarbos, Acanthus, the type of this family; on account of the long spike of yellow or flame-coloured flowers.

VOL. XIII.

"Speciosi generis planta speciosissima," to the noble Collection at Woburn, where they flowered in November, 1839, when Mr. FORBES kindly communicated to me the specimen here represented. It inhabits the mountains bordering on Sylhet, and was thence introduced by Mr. DE SILVA to the Calcutta Botanic Garden, where it flowers at nearly the same season as in the stove in our country.

DESCR. The plant forms a Shrub of from four to six feet high, branched, the branches obsoletely quadrangular, downy. Leaves opposite, large, eight to ten inches and even a foot or more in length, petiolated, elliptical, acute at both extremities, entire, or sometimes obsoletely crenated, glabrous, with the midrib (which is reddish as well as the young branches) prominent beneath. Floral leaves, or bracteas, resembling these but infinitely smaller, scarcely an inch long, soon deciduous. Raceme erect, terminal, compound, almost a compact thyrsus, six to eight inches long. Pedicels short. Calyx hairy, ovate, cut into five equal, linear-lanceolate, erect segments. Corolla reddish-yellow, villous or downy; the tube very long, curved, the limb two-lipped upper lip ascending, bifid; lower patent, with three lanceolate lobes. Stamens two, perfect, and the rudiments of two others. Filaments glabrous, a little exserted. Anthers linear-oblong. Germen ovato-oblong. Style included.

Fig. 1. Portion of the Corolla, with the Stamens. 2. Calyx and Pistil. 3. Ovary:-magnified.