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161
ON HABENARIA MIERSIANA, Champ.
By H. F. Hance, Ph.D., etc.
This Orchid, one of the rarest members of the Hongkong flora, was
first described by its discoverer, the late Lieut. -Colonel Champion, in
1855,* the determination being supervised by Professor Lindley, who
pointed out a close affinity with the Nepalese II. geniculata, Don.
Mr. Bentham admitted the species in his ' Flora Hongkongensis,'
with some slight modification of the character, but without any special
remark. Thuuberg, in 1784,t described an Orchid from the neighbourhood
of Nagasaki, which he erroneously took for 0. Susau/ue, L.
Ten years later, however, having in the interval discovered his mistake,
he gave a figure of the plant, | under the name of 0. radiata, adducing
his former name as a synonym. Lindley, in his monograph of the
family, placed this in the genus Platanthera, ^ no doubt on account of
its supposed relationship to P. Sma7in(e, for he had seen no specimen,
and his diagnosis was simply framed from Thunberg's description.
As regards that author's figure, the flower is a very good representa-
tion of that of Habenaria 3Iiersiana,hut there are only two in the raceme,
and the leaves are depicted much narrower and more acute than in the
Chinese plant.
Amongst Maximowicz's Nagasaki plants is an Orchid distributed
by him under Lindley's name, which I find on a careful comparison
and dissection of the flower, to be in all respects identical with Cham-
pion's species, the fleshy processes of the stigma, characteristic of
typical Habenaria, but not occurring in Flatantherce, being equally
conspicuous. It was not until after I had ascertained this fact, that I
became aware that the same plant had been previously gathered in
Japan by Buerger and Siel^old, the latter of whom also considered it
as the one described by Thunberg ; whilst Professor Miquel, on ac-
count of its having broader leaves and less deeply-cut lateral labellum-
lobes than represented in the plate, characterized it as a new species,
under the name of 11. Sleboldlana,'^ very acutely remarking : " Prae-
sertim confinis videtur H. Miersianre, Champ., cnjus autem lobi labelli
laciniati." Tliis, which is certainly an imaginary, is doubtless also a
* Hook. Joiu-n. Bot. vii. 37. t Flor. Jap. 25.
X Ic. Plant. Jap Dco. 1, t. 2. § Gen. et Spec. Orchid. 296.
II Ann. Mus. Lugd.-iJat. ii. 208.