62 
purest healthy white; and although the plant belongs to the 
section with undivided tubers, and those last year were 
undivided, the largest of the new tubers had two strong lobes 
at the base. This circumstance, arising in the very season 
of cultivation, shews how Orchis provincialis may in a 
different locality acquire the prominences which have been 
supposed to distinguish sambucina from it. The plants called 
Sambucina, as far as I have seen, are more vigorous and 
grow in colder quarters. The fine crimson Orchis with an 
orange throat, called O. Schleicheri by Sweet, grows in com- 
pany with the yellow on the southern brow of the Alps, and 
differs in being scentless, and a little also in the length of the 
spur; but, although it is difficult tounderstand why those pecu- 
liarities should attend the change of colour, from the manner 
in which they grow intermixed and in contact with each 
other, with foliage and tubers precisely similar, it can scarcely 
be doubted that they are seminal variations. I saw one plant 
on the brow of the St. Gothard of an intermediate colour, 
with the peculiarities of the crimson plant.” —W. Herbert, 
65. ORNITHIDIUM miniatum. 
O. miniatum ; caulescens, pseudobulbiferum, foliis oblongo-loratis patentibus 
apice oblique rotundatis mox margine serrulatis, floribus axillaribus laxé 
exsertis, pedunculis unifloris, sepalis petalisque ovatis acutis glabris, 
labello basi concavo nectarifero apice trilobo laciniis lateralibus brevibus 
obtusis ascendentibus intermedia laté ovata v. retusà subundulata. 
This plant has quite the habit of Ornithidium coccineum, 
but it is much handsomer : for the flowers are of rich crimson 
vermilion. Their lip is of quite another form ; being dis- 
tinctly three-lobed at the end, with the side lobe rising up, 
and the intermediate one broad, flat, rounded, and partially 
turned downwards ; it is of a yellow colour, but edged and 
blotched with crimson. Messrs. Rollissons have flowered it ; 
they imported it from Colombia. 
66. PORPAX reticulata. 
Among the many curiots little plants, which in a collec- 
tion like that of Messrs. Loddiges receive the same care as 
greater things, were a few button-like pseudobulbs, held 
close together by a slender rhizome, and received from the 
