“It was collected in 1834 by Mr. Henchman, in the valley of Cuman- — 
coa, in Venezuela. Mr. H. describes it as growing suspended by long 
fibrous roots from the lateral branches of trees, so that its pseudo-bulbs, 
which in their growing state are uncommonly brittle, hang downwards 
and wave in the wind, which would otherwise be sufficient to break them. 
It has a very delicate perfume in the morning, but appears to lose it in 
the heat of the day. The remains of spikes have been seen, which had 
produced ten flowers.” 
Shortly afterwards Mr. Bateman forwarded it from Knypersley, with 
this memorandum :— 
“The plant which produced the specimen from which your drawing 
is made, 1 derived in September (1835) from Messrs. Lowe and Co. of 
the Clapton Nursery. It had then been only recently imported, and was 
Just beginning to push a shoot, which has ever since continued to increase 
in length and strength. It is now, although apparently far from com- 
pleted, upwards. of two feet long, and equal in girth to the stem of an 
ordinary Cyrtopodium. It is suspended from a rafter in a pot (filled 
with broken potsherds and turfy peat), and its stems are completely pen- 
dulous, like those of some eastern Dendrobia. Common as is this pendent 
habit in the Old World, our present subject presents, as far as I am aware, 
the only example of its occurrence in the New. It may also be worthy 
of remark that the fleshy stems of this species, although apparently similar 
in structure to those of Cyrtopodium, Catasetum, Myanthus, Mormodes, 
Cycnoches, and the like, seem utterly incapable of pushing a shoot after 
the radical eye is gone, several healthy pieces having remained with- 
out breaking for more than a year; whereas from any of the above-named 
genera, under similar circumstances, plants would have been long since 
obtained." 
With regard to the affinity of this genus, although it has in so many 
respects the habit of certain genuine Dendrobia, and in others that of 
Cyrtopodium and its allies, it is in reality essentially different from those 
genera, and much more nearly akin to Epidendrum and its section. Its 
pollen masses consist of two yellow plates, placed side by side in the bed 
of the anther, united at the back and slightly notched on the outer edge, 
so that it is in reality four-lobed, the lobes being extremely unequal ; each 
lobe has a thickened margin, and rising up, overlies and conceals four 
other lobes of a thicker texture and smaller size, two of which arise from 
the back and two from the front of the inner edge of the principal lobes 
of the plate above described. "This remarkable structure may. be theore- 
tically described as being equivalent to eight pollen masses, of which the 
straps of connection, such as exist in all Epidendree, are run together 
into two plates, from an expansion of the edges of which the pollen 
masses appear to spring. 
. This is a very showy plant; the colours of the flower being very 
bright, its texture firm, and its surface even and waxy. The lip, 
with its crimson veins, and narrow elevations radiating from the base, 1$ 
especially worthy of attention. : 
Fig. 1. is a representation of the upper portion of the column; 2. is 
the lip laid open; 3. are the pollen masses spread open, to shew their 
structure, 
