



a purpose. For what then can they have been formed, 

 unless to delight the sense of man, to gratify his eye 

 their gay colours and fantastic forms, and to shew the 

 inexhaustible fertility of that creative power which we 

 recognise every where in Nature. 



If this be not the object of those countless changes of 

 form and colour which the Orchis tribe exhibits, we shall 

 scarcely comprehend why in this very genus Oncidium the 

 lip bears at its base a collection of tubercles which are not 

 only different in every species, but so strangely varied, that 



" Eye of newt, and toe of frog, 



» 



are the least singular of the forms that lie cowering in the 

 bosom of their petals ; the heads of unknown animals, 



coils 



of snakes rising as if to 



the 



reptiles of unheard-of figures, 



dart upon the curious observer, may all be seen in 

 blossoms of the various species, whose very flowers may be 

 likened to unearthly insects on the wing. 



This very distinct species was discovered on the Organ 

 Mountains of Brazil by Mr. William Harrison of Rio Janeiro. 

 We have taken the liberty of naming it after a family more 

 distinguished than any other for the number of species they 

 have introduced, and for the success with which they have 



cultivated them. Whenever Horticulture shall a^ain find 



g 



an historian, he will have to record the period when the 

 difficulty of cultivating tropical Orchidese, which was once 

 considered insuperable, was successfully overcome ; in such 

 a history the names of Mr. William Harrison, of Mrs. Arnold 

 Harrison, and of Mr. Richard Harrison, will stand among 

 the foremost. 





O. Harrisonianum is easily 



recognised 



by its fleshy, 



slightly channelled, recurved leaves, each of which is placed 

 upon a little pseudobulb, not much bigger than a sparrow's 

 egg, but round and shining. The panicles of flowers are 

 about a foot high, and arranged in a graceful manner, some- 

 thing in the way of Oncidium flexuosum. Our figure has 

 been made from a drawing and specimen communicated by 

 Mrs. Arnold Harrison in October 1832. 











