xiv INTRODUCTION. 



lescens; but their color is only a delicate lilac-laven- 

 der. This almost total want of blue Orchids becomes 

 the more remarkable from the frequency of the color 

 in all the large nearly related families, unless in the 

 Amaryllids, which show much less than the Liliaceae 

 and Iridaceae. Every other hue is possessed by the 

 Orchids in abundance, and the richest variety, spot- 

 less pearl and the intensest crimson-violet forming 

 the poles, with everything there is in spring and sun- 

 set lying between. 



" Orchids beset us with questions such as those 

 indicated, and ask more riddles than ever the Sphynx 

 proposed to travellers. Grotesqueness of flower- 

 shape, let us remember, so remarkable in the new 

 world forms, is one of the very special characteristics 

 of the entire family ; and probably a part of the in- 

 terest which Orchids excite in our minds comes from 

 their weird outlines and expression, so totally dis- 

 tinct are these from the physiognomy of all other 

 flowers in nature. It is now an old story that Or- 

 chid flowers present the simulacra of beasts, birds, 

 and fishes, reptiles and insects, yea, even of the 

 human figure, as in the droll Aceras anthropophora, 

 which dressed like an acrobat, in skin-tunic of green, 

 swings as if gibbetted in company with some fifty 

 other little felons. 



" The Espiritu Sancto seems a white dove with ex- 

 panded wings. As for horns, antennae, antlers, tails, 

 ears, and other adjuncts, of shape the most eccentric, 

 there are enough to give a zoologist the agonies ; 



