EPIDENDRUM VENOSUM. 



VEINED TREE-ORCHIS. 



NATURAL ORDER, ORCHIDACE^. 



Epidendrum VENOSUM, Lindley. — Scape tumid at the base, five to seven flowered ; leaves two, 

 linear-lanceolate, abruptly pointed; bracts short, ovate ; sepals and petals spatulate-lanceo- 

 late, acute; lip three-parted, two-crested in the middle; the lateral lobes oblong, acute ; 

 the middle one wedge-shaped, notched at the apex ; the claw partly adnate to the two- 

 winged column. Scape about one foot high, invested with numerous short whitish sheaths. 

 Leaves four to five inches long. Flowers eight lines long. (Chapman's Flora of the South- 

 ern United States.) 



HEN William Bartram made his journey to Florida in the 

 interest of Peter Collinson, he discovered an orchid 

 growing on the Magnolia grandiflora, and which is now known 

 as Epidendnmi conopseuni ; and, for a long time afterwards, this 

 was regarded as the only orchidal epiphyte — that is to say, an 

 orchid growing on trees — in the United States. But during 

 comparatively recent years a second epiphyte has been discov- 

 ered in Florida, and of the same genus as the other. The first 

 knowledge the writer had of it was from some specimens sent to 

 him from Florida, soon after the Secession war, by Mr. Wm. M. 

 Canby, of Wilmington, Del. These were fastened to a block of 

 wood with a little moss tucked in about them, when they grew 

 well, and bloomed the following year. The first description of 

 it in an American work appears in Chapman's "Flora of the 

 Southern United States" of 1872, as quoted at the head of our 

 chapter, where its discovery in Florida is credited to Dr. Blod- 

 gett. It appears, however, to be frequently met with by col- 

 lectors in Florida, since its existence there was first made known. 

 In the " Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club," Volume 6, Mary 



(53) 



