15 



so many plants were brought to England in 1834 by Mr. 

 Lance, has at length flowered in this country, with Thomas 

 Brocklehurst, Esq. of the Fence near Macclesfield, who re- 

 cently imported it from Surinam. The flowers were much 

 paler in their colours than those of the plant in its native 

 country, but this was doubtless owing to the dark season of 

 the year. 



/ 13. EPIDENDRUM (HORMIDIUM) uniforum; rhizomate monillform;, 

 floribus solitariis, sepalis petalisque linearibus acumlnatis incurvis, labello 

 trilobo coluinnae adnato laciniis lateralibuy rotundatis erectis intermedia tri- 

 angulari acuminata, sepalis lateralibus labello suppositis eique adnatis. 



A Mexican plant of no beauty, with yellowish green 

 flowers, imported by George Barker, Esq. of Birmingham. 



The genus Epidendrum I once thought very natural ; 

 but it is now becoming so very extensive, that it comprehends 

 plants with extremely different habits, and it is daily be- 

 coming more desirable for it to be divided. But great as is 

 the diversity of appearance among the species, there is a 

 singular uniformity in the structure of their flowers, and it 

 is not a little remarkable that such differences as exist can 

 scarcely be said to be connected with corresponding diffe- 

 rences in the organs of vegetation ; so that, as far as I am 

 at present able to discover, if Epidendrum is broken up, by 

 means of characters taken from such modifications as are 

 employed for the definition of other genera, the new groups 

 are scarcely more natural than the old one. For this reason 

 I have suppressed the genera Auliza and Amphiglottis 

 of Salisbury, and the Encyclia of Sir William Hooker, as 

 genera depending upon mere differences of habit and not of 

 fructification. For instance, Encyclia has the labellum sepa- 

 rate from the column ; and if this were always connected 

 with the pseudo-bulbous stem and panicled inflorescence of 

 many of the species, it would be an excellent character ; 

 but E. equitans, smaragdinum, and others, have the disunited 

 lip with an entirely different mode of growth ; this is espe- 

 cially the case with the beautiful E. bicornutum. So witJi 

 Auliza of Salisbury, the type of which is E. ciliare ; this 

 supposed genus was distinguished by there being a long 

 fistular cavity proceeding from the base of the lip down the 

 ovary, or, in other words, by its labelluni being calcarate, 

 and the calcar consolidated with the ovary, as happens in 



