CALOPOGON PULCHELLUS. 



GRASS-PINK. 



NATURAL ORDER, ORCHIDACE/E. 



Calopogon PULCHELLUS, R. Brown. — Scape two to eight-flowered; leaf linear-lanceolate, 

 erect, keeled, many-nerved ; flowers large, mostly approximate, bright purple ; lateral 

 sepals obliquely ovate, abruptly pointed, shorter than the lanceolate obtuse petals ; lip 

 broadly obcordate, acutely two-cared at the base ; filaments of the crest dccurrcnt on the 

 claw, the lower ones purple and united ; ovary straight, two to three times as long as 

 the lanceolate-subulate bracts ; scape one and one half to two feet high ; leaves six to 

 twelve inches long ; flowers one to one and one half inches wide. (Chapman's Flora of the 

 Southern United States. See also Gray's Manual of the Botany of the A'orthern United 

 States, and Wood's Class-Booh of Botany.') 



HE great progress made in the knowledge of the structure 

 and the relations of orchids since the time of Linnaeus 

 has necessitated many changes of nomenclature, and hence, in 

 looking into the history of the genera or species belonging 

 to this order, it is sometimes rather difficult to trace them 

 through the various names which some of them have received, 

 and which in time have come to be looked upon as synonyms. 

 Our present species, which seems to have been first introduced 

 to the notice of botanists by Clayton (who, as the reader knows, 

 collected in Anierica in the last century), was named Limodorum 

 tuberosum by Gronovius, and Linnaeus adopted Limodorum as 

 the generic name in his work entitled " Species Plantarum." 

 Some authors speak of our flower as " OpJwys barbaia of Will- 

 denow"; but in the copy of Willdenow's " Species Plantarum" 

 at our command, it is called Cymbidium pulchcllum. The dis- 

 crepancy is probably due to an error copied and recopied by 

 one author from the other, and instead of Willdenow we should 

 read Walter. Limodorum pulchellum is also met with, and 



