INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 
.\@ FEW general remarks on the extensive family of Orchidacee, will, perhaps, best introduce what we 
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are about to say respecting that section of the tribe, to which this Work is more immediately devoted ; 
and, in the hasty observations which follow, we shall abstain, as much as possible, from all details of a 
purely scientific nature, as an opportunity of treating more fully on that branch of our subject will occur 
‘ towards the close of our Work. Although the great extent of the species of this order was not even suspected 
till within the last few years, and though the rage for their introduction is of still more recent date, yet there were some among 
the earlier botanists, on whom their charms would not appear to have been lost ; especially, the great Rumputus in the Old 
World, and Hernanpez in the New. In the Herbarium Amboinense of the former, his chapter on the “ Angreecums” 
(so he designates the whole tribe) opens with the following passage, which we quote for the edification of our readers: 
—‘* Now,” he exclaims, “now come we to describe a noble family of plants, which is remarkable for having always its 
dwelling aloft upon the branches of other trees, and which scorns the lowly ground ;—like the seats and castles of the 
great, which are usually built in elevated situations. . . . . And, as nobility is distinguished by its appropriate and 
dignified attire, so this tribe of plants has a towering mode of growth, quite peculiar to itself.’* This eloquent 
eulogium will suffice to prove, that the eastern Orchidaceew were not without admirers, even in those barbarous times , 
and their brethren of the West seem to have been equally fortunate, as one of their tribe received attentions of the 
most marked description from the “Piiny of New Spain,” (as Hernanpez has been styled), who, not content with 
using it to decorate almost every page of his work, ventured to dedicate it, as the loveliest plant of the Mexican 
Flora, to the Lyncean Academicians of Rome, by whom it was immediately adopted, as the peculiar emblem of 
their learned body.f 
Piumrer was another botanist, who paid his court to this tribe in an especial manner; and his figures of some of 
the West Indian species are models of accuracy and beauty, even at the present day. With these and other examples 
before us, it will appear surprising that Linnaus should only have been acquainted with one hundred species, of which 
all those which grew upon trees (making, perhaps, a fourth of the whole) he thrust into his genus Epidendrum. What 
would be the astonishment of that “father of Botany,” could he now but behold his lonely “ Epidendrum” multiplied 
into two hundred genera! and his one hundred Orchidacee increased to two thousand!!t Nay, what if he were 
assured, that our knowledge of the tribe was only in its wfancy, and that, in all probability, not one half of the 
species had been hitherto discovered ! ! ! 
* “© Nune nobilem deseribemus herbarum silvestrium familam, que eo sese distinguit, quod semper in alto habitat, in aliis nempe arboribus, ac spermt humile solum, 
uti et plerumque nobiles arce et castella in altis extructa sunt locis, ita ut alium ac sublimem crescendi habeant modum ac formam, uti et nobilitas modernis sese distin- 
guit, et superbis vestementis.”—Rumpuius Herb. Am. xi. 1. 
The Latin of our Amboyna “Savant,” it will be seen by this quotation, is by no means Ciceronian, nor is it easy to translate literally : indeed, it 
is almost as bad as our own. 
+ This is the “ Flos Lyncea,” so named by its discoverer, for a two-fold reason; first, because it was spotted like a Lynw; and secondly, because it was designed 
to be the emblem of the Lyncean Academy. HERNanDEz would seem to have been a wit: he flourished in 1650. His favourite plant, was, probably, an Anguloa, 
and it has, we believe, been recently imported. A greatly reduced representation of it will be observed in our Frontispiece. 
{ This is no exaggeration. Dr. Linpiny has already described upwards of a thousand in his Malaxidee, Epidendrea, and Vandee, to which a supplement 
of five hundred might now be added ; and, besides these, there are the Ophryde@, &c. which will comprehend at least five hundred more. 
