Page:The Flora of British India Vol 6.djvu/9

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

FLORA OF BRITISH INDIA.

Order CXLVIII. ORCHIDEÆ.

Continued from Vol. v. p. 858.

Tribe II. Vandeæ. (See Vol. v. p. 671.)

39. EULOPHIA, Br.

Terrestrial quite glabrous herbs ; rbizome tuberous, rarely pseudo- bulbous. Leaves appearing with or after the flowers, plaited. Scape lateral, flowers racemose, rarely panicled. Sepals sLudpetals free, spreading. Lip erect from the base or foot of the column ; base saccate or with a mentum or short spur ; lateral lobes erect, embracing the column, rarely ; midlobe spreading or recurved; disk crested, softly spinous or lamellate. Column short or long, top oblique, entire ; anther terminal, 2-celled ; pollinia 2 or 4, sessile or attached by a short strap to a discoid gland of the rostellum. — Species about 60, tropical, chiefly Asiatic.

I follow Blume, and others, in removing Cyrtopera from Cyrtopodium (where it is placed in Gen. Plant.), and including it as a section under ^ulophia, there being a direct passage from the species with, to those without, a foot to the column. In sect. Cyrtopera the lateral sepals are inserted either on the foot of the column, leaving the spur or sac of the lip free, or their insertion extends along the spur, which then is technically a mentum. The perianth of Eulophia is undistinguishable from that of Dipodium, Geodorum, Plocoglottis, and Tainia, of which the two first might but for habit be united with it ; the two latter differ in having creeping rhizomes, usually solitary leaves, and more than 2 pollinia. Chrysoglossum resembles a JEulophia with the pollinia free from the rostellum.

Sect. I. ZSulophia proper. Column not produced into a foot.

  • Leaves and flowers coetaneous, or nearly so.

t Pseudobulb very large, epigeal, green. Leaves very narrow. Scape often branched.

1. IS. virens, Brown in Bot. Beg. sub t. 673 {Eulophus) ; leaves grass- like, bracts very small ovate acute, sepals linear-oblong subacute or obtuse, petals elliptic obtuse, lip obovate-oblong, side lobes small, disk with 5-crested nerves. Lindl. Gen. <Sf Sp. Orchid. 182; in Journ. Linn. Soc. in. 24<; Wight Ic. t. 913 ; Bat. Mag. t. 6679 ; Walp. Ann. vi. 647. E. carinata, Lindl. Gen. 4" Sp.^ Orchid. 183. Aerobium carinatum, Spreng. Syst. Veg. iii. 718. Serapias epidendrea, Betz Ohs. vi. 65. Limodorum virens, Swartz in Nov, Act Upsal. vi. 79 ; Boxh. Cor. PL i. t. 38 ; Fl. Ind. iii. 467. L. epiden- droides, Willd. Sp. PI. iv. i.—Rheede Sort. Mai. xii. t. 26, and ? 25.

Bengal and the Deccan Peninsula J in dry ground, Roxburgh, &c. Ceylon, in the Central Province, Walker, &c.

VOL. VI. B