E. confusa Hooker f. in Hook. Ic. Plant. t.1850 (1889) et Fl. Brit. India, V. 796 (1890); King & Pantl. in Ann. Bot. Gard. Calcutta, VIII. 122, t.169 (1898); Kraenzlin in Engl. Pflanzenreich, Dendrob. II. 91, fig. 18, A-E (1911); Br hl, Guide Orch. Sikkim, 84 (1926); Gagnepain & Guillaumin in Lecomte, Fl. G n. Indo-Chine, VI. 350 (1933). E. Andersonii Hooker f., Fl. Brit. India, V. 795 (1890) et in Hook. Ic. Plant. t.2069 (1891); Kraenzlin in Engl. Pflanzenreich, Dendrob. II. 79 (1911), pro parte; G. Catt in Orch. Rev. XXXVI. 112 (1928). E. hypomelana Hayata, Ic. Plant. Formos. IV. 54, fig. 22 (1914); Schlechter in Fedde Repert. Beih. IV. 218 (1919). The confusion in which this species has been enveloped was started so long ago as 1830 when Lindley, in describing his Eria excavata, based on material collected by Wallich in Nepal (no. 1974), included two quite distinct species, one of which was E. amica. From an examination of Lindley's herbarium it seems evident that he really meant the other plant to be E. excavata although the actual description is drawn up from specimens of both species. In 1889 Sir Joseph Hooker, in working up the genus Eria for his Indian Flora, realised the mixture present in the material of E. excavata and separated our present species as E. confusa, citing also specimens of his own collecting from Sikkim. About the same time he published the description of another species, E. Andersonii Hook. f., also from Sikkim, based upon two excellent coloured drawings in the Calcutta Herbarium, one of which had been made from a plant collected by T. Anderson. Previous to this, however, the younger Reichenbach had described in 1870 a species which he named E. amica in.

E. excavata Lindley

E. confusa Hooker f. in Hook. Ic. Plant. t.1850 (1889) et Fl. Brit. India

(1890)

(1898)

(1911)