376 ANNUAL. REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1924 



Next to the Cattleyas, the plants most esteemed for cultivation in 

 Costa Eica are the Trichopilias. Of these the most common is 

 Trichopilia suavis (pi. 22), a species occurring also in Panama. 

 It is rather frequent in Costa Rican forests at lower altitudes, and 

 it is possible to find wild plants quite as fine as those of gardens. 

 The fiowers have white or creamy sepals and petals; the lip has a 

 yellow throat, with rose markings upon a white ground. Tricho- 

 pilias are well known locally, and even in remote country districts 

 small children know them by their Latin name. 



Other showy species are found among the Odontoglossums, one 

 of the most popular groups in cultivation of all American orchids. 

 Odontoglossum schlieperianum (pi. 23, fig. 1) has yellow flowers, 

 the segments cross-barred with deep purple. The Stanhopeas are 

 noted as including many fine plants that are favorites in cultivation. 

 The one illustrated (pi. 24, fig. 1) has flowers about 4 inches 

 broad, in which the sepals and petals are pure white, with purple 

 dots, and the lip white with yellow base and purple mottlings. 



Many other Costa Rican orchids deserve mention, but without 

 illustrations they would be no more than mere names. The Miltonias 

 are almost as beautiful as the Cattleyas, and there are other little 

 known plants that are noteworthy because of their exceptionally 

 handsome blossoms. E pidendrimi endresii, a dwarf plant with,' 

 clusters of pure white flov/ers, handsomely spotted with purple, is 

 one of the most delicately beautiful of all. The most common and 

 striking orchid of the Meseta Central of Costa Rica is Epidendrum 

 radicans, which is found nearly everywhere at certain elevations. 

 It is a terrestrial plant, its slender, erect or climbing stems, with 

 their numerous thick aerial roots and broad thick leaves, topped 

 with a cluster of orange-scarlet flowers. In many localities it al- 

 most assumes the character of a weed, and grows in the greatest 

 abundance. The writer was shown an unusually interesting and 

 large colony by Mr. Lankester in a curious habitat upon his finca 

 at Las Concavas. Here it occurred in great profusion in a marsh 

 along with a Habenaria and, strangely enough, the common royal 

 fern, just as we find the last in the eastern United States. Such a 

 habitat is quite unusual, for ordinarily the scarlet Epidendrum in- 

 habits rather well drained banks and meadows. 



Another fine Epidendrum is E. lindleyanum (pi. 23, fig. 2), a 

 plant sometimes referred to the genus Barlieria. The specimens 

 illustrated were obtained at Orosi by Don Anastasio Alfaro, direc- 

 tor of the Costa Rican National Museum, an enthusiastic orchid col- 

 lector. In this plant the flowers are rose purple, and the petals and 

 sepals well over an inch in length. Epidendrum ciliare (pi. 24, fig. 

 2) is a widely distributed plant in tropical America, and one of the 



