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162 ON HA3ENAKIA MIERSIANA.
conjectural point of difference, for he can scarcely have seen the plant
of Champion, who only twice met with it, whilst I have myself, I believe,
never possessed but three specimens, two of which are in my
herbarium, the other sent to Professor H. G. Eeichenbach. Havinsr
subsequently received a specimen from Maximowicz, Miquel remarks :*
" //. SieholcUana, quara prope Nagasaki legeruut Maximowicz et
Mohnike, ab illo H. radiata, Lindl., statuitur, qui itaque synonymon
Thunbergiauum hue duxit : donee exemplar authenticum iuvestigatum
sit, hac de re dubia supersunt." These doubts can perhaps only be
authoritatively solved by the botanists of Upsala ; but that there is no
good reason for calling in question the identity of Champion's and
Miquel's species with that of Thunberg is, I think, evident, from the
fact that the former has apparently been gathered by every botanist
who has collected around Nagasaki, where M. Maximowicz resided an
entire year, and enjoyed every fticility for exploration ; that it is the
oidy plant yet found there agreeing at all with Thunberg's description
and plate ; and that, looking to the great difficulties and impediments
that a traveller had to encounter, as graphically detailed in his preface,
some allowance may fairly be made for a drawing executed from a
dried, and very likely depauperate and indifferent specimen.
In describing a new Cantonese Orchid in the last volume of this
Journal, I referred it to Feristylus, explaining that I did so, not from
any conviction of the validity of that genus, but because I felt uncertain
as to the limits of any larger group in which to locate it. I may
take this opportunity of saying that, on more mature reflection, 1 quite
concur with the reduction of Cvelogloasmn, Perialylm, Flata>dhera, and
Gynmadenla to Ilaheuaria, as proposed by Mr. Bentham and since
acquiesced in by Professor Asa Gray,t two of the most accomplished
of living botanists. Nor, indeed, though at present inclined to keep
it so, am I satisfied that tjie absence of a biirsicula suffices to maintain
the genus apart from Orchis, with which it is combined by Grenier
and Wilkoram. For, while the existence of fleshy stigmatic cornua
could scarcely of itself be defended as a sufficient ground for the
generic severance of Ilahenaria from Platanthera, it must, at least in
any philosophical classification, if depended on, be recognized as of
equal and unvarying value in very closely allied groups. But Professor
* Op. clt. iii. 19i.
t Man. But. N. Un. St., 5tli cd. 499.