base; upper part spreading and thickened; margins usually much crisped. Ovary glandular.—Hook. f. Fl. Tasm. ii. 15; Handb. N.Z. Fl. 272; Benth. Fl. Austral. vi. 314. S. novæ-zealandiæ, Hook. f. Fl. Nov. Zel. i. 243.
North Island: Auckland—Near Ohora, T.F.C.; Kaitaia, R. H. Matthews! Great Barrier Island, Kirk; near Auckland, T.F.C; Upper Waikato, Colenso; Rotorua, T.F.C. Taranaki—Swamps near New Plymouth; Ngaire Swamp, T.F.C. South Island: Okarito, A. Hamilton. Sea-level to 1500 ft. January–February.
Also found in Australia, and in many parts of tropical and temperate Asia.
6. THELYMITRA, Forst.
Terrestrial herbs, usually glabrous. Root of oblong or ovoid tubers. Leaf solitary, linear or lanceolate, often thick and fleshy but not terete; empty sheathing bracts 1 or 2 along the stem. Flowers few or many in a terminal raceme, sometimes reduced to one. Sepals and petals similar and equal or nearly so, spreading. Lip similar to the petals, quite free from the column at the base. Column short, erect, broadly 2-winged; the wings either produced behind the anther with a variously lobed or fringed or rarely entire margin, or with 2 prominent lateral lobes as long or longer than the anther; at the base the wings extend between the column and the lip and are united. Anther in front of the produced wing of the column or between its lateral lobes, erect, 2-celled; connective often produced; pollinia 2 in each cell, friable.
A genus of probably over 30 species, mostly natives of Australia and New Zealand, one species only being found in New Caledonia, and two in the Malay Archipelago. It is remarkable from the lip being quite free from the column and resembling the petals and sepals, so that the perianth has little of the irregular appearance of an orchid, but rather resembles that of an Ixia or Sisyrinchium. The New Zealand species are much alike in habit and general appearance, and in most cases cannot be distinguished from one another when out of flower, or when dried. Even when in the flowering state they require careful study before their differential characters can be understood. The following analysis is in several respects imperfect, but is the best that I can offer in the present state of our knowledge. I have in my herbarium specimens of at least three additional forms, but they cannot be safely described until more complete material is available.
| A. Cucullaria. Column-wing extending behind the anther and usually over-topping it, hood-shaped, variously lobed or fringed, the lateral lobes tipped with a dense brush of cilia. | |
| Column-wing with 3 short denticulate or fimbriate lobes at the back between the lateral lobes | 1. T. ixioides. |
| Column-wing with a broad entire or emarginate lobe between the lateral lobes, which are shorter than it | 2. T. longifolia. |
| Column-wing with a truncate or bifid scarcely hood-shaped lobe between the lateral lobes, which are longer than it | 3. T. intermedia. |
| Column-wing with a hood-shaped lobe between the lateral lobes, which are much longer than it. Sepals and petals linear-oblong | 4. T. Colensoi. |
