496 



EPI 



THE UNIVERSAL HERBAL: 



EP I 



27. Epidendrum Ensifolium. Stein round, even ; leaves 

 ensiform ; petals lanceolate ; lip lanceolate, recurved, dotted ; 

 root perennial, consisting of a few thick fleshy fibres. Leaves 

 radical, several, eqtiitant, erect, clothed with some brown per- 

 manent scales at the base, rigid, rnther sharp-pointed, will) a 

 rough margin towards the top, channelled, nerved, smooth 

 on both sides, when dry becoming longitudinally striated ; 

 stalk growing on the outside of the leaves, and not quite so 

 long, erect, simple, brown, bearing from four to six Howcrs. 

 and furnished with three or four alternate, sheathing, acute, 

 striated, brown scales, and compressed towards the top; 

 flowers alternate, sessile, a little drooping; brack's solitary, 

 resembling the scales on the stalk, but smaller. The flowers 

 have a sweet lemon-like odour, pungent, but not strong, most 

 powerfully perceived at night, or on entering the hot-house 

 in a morning: on account of this perfume the plant is much 

 cultivated in China. Native of China and Japan. 



28. Epidendrum Monilifonne. Stem round, jointed, 

 streaked, necklace-form, naked, quite simple ; leaves linear, 

 acute. This is a parasitical plant, with white flowers, ob- 

 served at Misima in Japan, by Thunberg, during his travels 

 through that country; who says it was tied up in bundles, 

 and hung out before a house. It can live several years with- 

 out water, or other nourishment, and yet grow and flower all 

 the while. 



29. Epidendrum Ophioglossoides. Stem one-leafed ; flowers 

 lateraed, pointing one way. Native of America. 



30. Epidendrum Ruscilblium. Stem one-leafed ; flowers 

 from the sinus of the leaf, aggregate ; roots numerous, filiform, 

 rigid, whitish. Stems aggregate, often united at the base, fili- 

 form, a foot high, erect, sheathed, smooth; leaf terminating, 

 ovate-lanceolate, half the length of the plant, acuminate, en- 

 tire, keeled, channelled at the base, compressed, smooth, 

 thick, veined ; sheaths of the stem long, acuminate, streaked, 

 withering; peduncles short, two-flowered. Native of the 

 high mountains of Jamaica, where it is found on the trunks 

 of old trees ; and in the thick woods of Martinico. 



31. Epidendrum Graminifolium. Stem one-leafed; flowers 

 from the sinus of the leaf in pairs. Native of America. 



32. Epidendrum Capense. Scape naked ; loaves imbricate 

 in two rows, linear, obtuse ; flowers directed one way ; horn 

 very long : parasitical. Native of the Cape of Good Hope. 



33. Epidendrum Fuscatum ; Brown Epidendrum. Stems 

 simple; leaves oval; peduncle terminating, elongated, scaly; 

 lip of the nectary five-lobed, the middle lobe minute. Flower- 

 stalk erect, very long, simple, compressed, with many knotty 

 joints, smooth, green, but entirely covered with brown, mcm- 

 branaceous, sheathing scales, which are alternate, sharpish, 

 compressed, keeled, and ribbed ; spike terminating, erect, 

 forming a globose dense head of many small flowers ; bractes 

 solitary under each flower, lanceolate, concave, acute, pur- 

 plish-green, one-third the length of the germen ; flowers pale 

 green fsh purple, with a faint herbaceous smell. Native of 

 Jamaica. 



34. Epidendnim Tripterum ; TriaSif/ular-Jhtited Epiden- 

 drum. Loaves from a bulb and from the root sword-shaped; 

 stalks radical, sheathed, many-flowered ; germen three-winged ; 

 lip equal to the petals ; roots of a few thick, fleshy, long, and 

 nearly simple fibres, slightly downy; bulbs above ground, 

 numerous, ovate, but littli: compressed, smooth, green, some- 

 what glaucous, an inch long; stalks thrice as high as the 

 bulbs, erect, thickly covered at the base with smaller, con- 

 cave, bluntish, reddish scales, imbricated in a two-fold order, 

 in the upper part roundish, ending in a cluster of many 

 flowers ; flowers on footstalks, spreading, white, and sc-ent- 

 less. Native of Jamaica. 



35. Epidendrum Barringtonse; Large-flowered 



druui. Leaves broad-lanceolate, nerved, arising from a bulb ; 

 peduncles radical, mostly single-flowered ; lip fringed ; column 

 with a cover; root consisting of numerous branched fleshy 

 fibres, brown, downy, and divaricating; bulbs several above 

 the surface, larje, ovate, slightly^ompressed, smooth, green, 

 with an unequal and somewhnt furrowed surface; flower- 

 stalks three inches high, nearly erect, bearing one flower, 

 rarely two, round, green, smooth, clothed with four or more 

 sheathing alternate scales, which are ovate, concave, green, 

 with a rusty-coloured powdery down ; flowers from the upper- 

 most scale, a little drooping, and inodorous ; petals lanceo- 

 late, obtuse, somewhat succulent, slightly spreading, greenish, 

 towaiiis the tips of u olive brown, the two innermost rattier 

 the smallest, the two lowermost lengthened out at the base, 

 and united into a short blunt pouch; lips of the nectary aris- 

 ing from the_ back part of the inside of this pouch, uncon- 

 nected wiih every thing above, somewhat shorter than the 

 petals, covered on its upper side with an oblong, yellowish, 

 deeply-fhfrowed callosity, inversely heart-shaped in fiont; 

 its margin is three-lobed, the lateral lobes small, acute, 

 entire, erert, thin, and transparent; nectary very large, 

 of a rusty brown, blunt, hollowed above, swelling below, 

 pale, and beautifully (ringed all round the margin; column 

 of the fructification white, elongated at the IKIM-. connected 

 by its back to the pouch of the corolla, and by its forepart 

 at the bottom to the lip of the nectary, incurved, and blunt 

 at the top, behind obtusely keeled, flat, and with two 

 furrows before; cover pointed, obscurely three-celled within; 

 stamina red, close together; anlherse red, two on each fila- 

 mentnm, obovate, yellow; stigma large, very much 

 vated ; germen somewhat longer than the pouch of the 8 

 green, nearly cylindrical, with six furrows. This is the most 

 distinguished of the species hitherto introduced among ns, 

 not only on account of its size, but its singularity. Native 

 of Jamaica. 



36. Epidendnim Claviculatum. Stem climbing, round, 

 branching; leavi-s sessile, half stem-clasping, acute, concave, 

 recurved, rigid. This plant hangs down from the branches 

 of trees, and creeps up others to the height of forty feet. 

 Obwrre. The stem is joinl.-'d at the distance of five inches, 

 und at every joint there are fibres three or four inches long, 

 catching hold, by their hro.jd viscid end, of any part of a tree 

 they come near; it is about three-quarters of an inch in dia- 

 meter, vciy smooth, round, and deep green, solid, juicy, 

 and sometimes branched ; here and there, opposite to the 

 tendril, comes out a thin membranaceous leaf, from a broad 

 beginning, ending in a poiut. Native of Jamaica and His- 

 partiola. 



37. Epi'lendrum Ramosum. Stem very branching, suf- 

 frutescent ; leaves linear, emarginate : racemes terminating, 

 compressed. This plant is a foot and a half high, leafy, 

 parasitical ; roois lihrous ; branches compressed a little, 

 smooth, ash-coloured ; leaves oblong, obiuse, coriaceous, 

 rigid, veinless, entire, shining, sheathing at the base, dirty 

 green, alternate, an inch and a half long; spathes cordate- 

 ovate, acute, converging; spikes loose, distich, an inch and 

 a half long, generally four-flowered; flowers small, inelegant, 

 greenish ; petals somewhat rigid, equal in length, the three 

 outer lanceolate, the two inner linear ; lower lip of the uec- 

 tary oblong-cordate, acuminate, concave, rigid, the length of 

 the petals, of which it occupies the place of the third inte- 

 rior one; antheree roundish. Native of Martinico and Ja- 

 maica. 



38. Epidendnim Xutans. Stem simple; leavts ovate- 

 lanceolate, nerveless, stem-clasping; spike terminating, nod- 



