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 NAMES AND OBSERVATIONS ON INDIAN PLANTS. 54?9

Cypripedium} as well as in the sterile petal oid processes similarly situated in the other genera, as in Biuris. And the third stamen of the inner series, still more altered in form, may be considered as present in certain New Holland genera, especially Glossodia, where this supposed stamen is placed within the labellum, but entirely distinct from it; in Upiblema, Pterostylis, and Chiloylottis, in which an analogous appendage similarly situated coheres in various degrees with that division of the perianthium ; and perhaps it may be considered as indicated in all cases where the labellum is furnished with a process, however minute, arising from its axis.

If the view here taken of the position of the lateral filaments in Cypripedium and Biuris be adopted, it may be remarked that indications or rudiments of the two stamina necessary to complete the order in Orchidece, of those, namely, corresponding with the lateral segments of the outer series of the perianthium, have not yet been observed in the regular structure of any plant of the order. They have, however, been occasionally met with in mon- strous flowers of Habenaria bifolia, in more than one spike of which I have found the greater number of flowers triandrous, the three antherae being equidistant, and placed exactly opposite to the three divisions of the outer series of the perianthium, the inner series of which remains in its ordinary state.

M. Achille Richard 2 has given an account of an [75 analogous monstrosity in Orchis latifolia. In this case of a triandrous Orchis, M. Richard having adopted the opinion, which I believe I was the first to advance, 3 of the origin or nature of the auriculae of the anthera of many genera of Orchidece, considers the additional antherae as formed by the perfect development of these auriculae. This view, however, cannot be taken of the monstrosity of Habenaria bifolia, in which not only the auriculae of the anterior or ordinary stamen are distinctly present, but two

1 'Prod. Fl. Nov. Soil., 3 i, p. 309.

- 'Mem. de la Soc. d'Hist. Nat. de Paris,' i, p. 202.

3 ' Prod, FL Nov. Hot!.,' i, pp. 309 Sr 311.

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