ceiving, that a large number of recently formed genera 
consist of one or two species only. But to such objections, 
it appears to us that the genus Oncidium itself is a suf- 
ficient reply. It consists of a considerable number of 
species, we believe 23, to which there can be no doubt 
that many more will be added ; the species have decidedly- 
marked combining characters in their habit, as well as in the 
structure of their floral organs, and their union in one genus 
is in no instance affected by modern principles of analysis, 
the application of which to some other genera, even of 
Swartz himself, has sometimes shaken his combinations 
into almost as many genera as species. But if the mode 
of limiting genera to which w^e allude v, ere unsatisfactory, 
and tended only to disunion, it would scarcely admit so 
large an assemblage of individuals as Oncidium presents, 
in a state of combination, nor would the newly-discovered 
species of Orchideae be continually reinforcing the iden- 
tical genera, which are pronounced unnecessary, upon 
the ground of their thinness of species. 
A dwarf, evergreen, parasitical herb, without bulbs. 
Leaves distichous, spreading, oval, rigid, veinless, generally 
having an oblique direction, on account of a twist at their 
two ends. Scape terminal, erect, panicled, thyrsoid, 
brachiate. Flowers yellowish-brown, small. Perianthium 
spreading, 5-parted, w ith obovate segments, which are a 
little wavy and incurved at the end : the 3 upper mottled 
with brown, the lower not mottled. Lip yellow, flat, 
roundish, 3-lobcd ; with ovate, blunt, nearly equal lobes ; 
the middle one being rather smaller than the others, and 
having on its disk two longitudinal protuberances opposite 
the recesses of the lobes. Column with small entire rounded 
wings. Anther beaked, 
J, L. 
