352 



ORANGE TREE ORIOLE. 



as a spinacious vegetable, but is now very much out 

 of repute. 



ORANGE TREE is the Citrus aurantium of Lin- 

 naeus, an Asiatic fruit, and long cultivated in our 

 greenhouses, but much more for the beauty of the 

 foliage and fragrance of their flowers than for their 

 fruit. The orange is a species or variety of a very 

 numerous family, including the lime (whence perhaps 

 the whole have sprung), lemon, citron, orange, and 

 the shaddock, of all of which there are innumerable 

 varieties. The lime is the smallest, and found wild 

 in the jungles of India. The shaddock is the largest, 

 but much inferior to the orange. The lemon is most 

 used for medical and culinary purposes. The C. Pa- 

 radisi is a variety called the " forbidden fruit," from 

 its size and beauty, but is inferior to the best oranges. 

 We have the following imported sorts, viz., the com- 

 mon sweet, the China, the Majorca, the Nice, the 

 Genoa, the Portugal, the Malta or blood-fruited, the 

 St. Michael's, and the Oporto or pipless pot oranges. 

 There is also the Seville orange of inferior quality 

 for the table, but they are extensively used for other 

 purposes. We have orangeries in this country, in 

 which the fruit is brought to the greatest perfection ; 

 but the imported fruit, being so plentiful and cheap, 

 renders glass covered buildings less necessary for the 

 culture of oranges. 



ORCHIDE^E. One of the most natural and 

 well-defined orders in the vegetable kingdom. In 

 the latest published lists there are above one hundred 

 and fifteen genera, and four hundred and thirty spe- 

 cies enumerated, to which we are every day adding 

 new genera and many new species, chiefly from South 

 America. The Orchidcce are chiefly perennial and 

 herbaceous plants, some few only being suffrutescent, 

 and in many the stem is obsolete ; but to the crown 

 of the root, one, two, or more fleshy tubers are attached, 

 which contain the buds that are to form the plants of 

 the succeeding year ; in others the tubers are bundled 

 or composed of thick fibres ; in others again the 

 above-ground stem is enlarged and succulent ; many 

 of them are epiphytic, as the Epidendrece and Vanillce. 



The leaves are simple and entire, alternate, either 

 sheathing or articulated, with striated veins, and 

 occasionally degenerating into scales. 



The perigonium consists of six pieces, mostly pe- 

 taloid, and arranged in two series. The sepals of the 

 calyx are in general similar to each other, the odd 

 one being uppermost ; the petals of the corolla vary 

 in form ; the upper petal, which by the twisting of 

 the ovarium becomes apparently the lower, is called 

 the lip (labellum), as the two lower sepals, which be- 

 come from the same cause uppermost, are named the 

 helmet (galea). The lip, which is often lobed and 

 assumes a great variety of forms, likened to men, 

 monkeys, flies, butterflies, bees, &c., has been called 

 by some persons the nectary. The stamens are three 

 in number, becoming by abortion two or one, and^ 

 vmited with the pistil, forming a fleshy column, called 

 the gynosteme, which surmounts the ovary ; and hence 

 these plants have been termed epigynous by Jussieu, 

 and gynandrous by Linnaeus. On the apex of the 

 gynosteme there is found, in the OrchicletE, a two- 

 celled anther ; and on either side an eminence (sta- 

 minoida) marking the abortion of the other two, which 

 remain in a rudimentary state in all the type named, 

 from orchis, the Orchidete, and which are placed by 

 Linnaeus in his order Monandria of the twentieth 

 class. 



In front of the single anther in Orchis, and rather 

 before and between the two anthers in Cypripedium, 

 there is a secreting cavity, which is the naked stigma 

 of the pistil, the other part of which is blended with 

 the stamens in the gynosteme. The pollen contained 

 in the anthers is sometimes pulverulent and free, but 

 more frequently waxy or granular, with the grains 

 cohering in masses, which are called sectile masses ; 

 these have often prolongations, called caudicula, by 

 which they are attached to a viscid gland that has 

 been named rctiiiaculum. 



The fruit in the OrchidecE is capsular ; seeds small 

 and many ; their reversed gynandrous flowers and 

 coherent pollen distinguish them from other sections. 

 The Orchidece have the flowers monandrous and 

 the germen one-celled. The Cypripcdiece have 

 diandrous flowers, and germen one-celled ; and in the 

 section Apostasiacece, the flowers are diandrous or 

 triandrous, the anthers discrete, and the germen tri- 

 locular. 



The OrcnidecB are more prized for their beauty 

 and the strangeness of their flowers than for any very 

 important dietetic or medicinal properties they pos- 

 sess. The tubers, however, of some of them contain 

 farinaceous matter which is nutritious. The substance 

 known by the name of salep is made of the tubers of 

 some of the English species of orchis. It used to be 

 sold at the corners of the streets in London, and was 

 a favourite drink of hard-working people ; and it is 

 highly esteemed both in Turkey and Persia, under 

 the name of sahleb. 



Vanilla is the produce of the V. aromatica, the old 

 Epidendrum vanilla. This plant is a climbing epi- 

 phyte, growing in both Indies, and its root is used 

 for flavouring chocolate, and also for perfuming snuff. 



So many of the Orchideas are now in our collections 

 that houses are specially erected for their preserva- 

 tion and culture, almost all the tropical species re- 

 quiring a strong moist heat. Some of their flowers 

 are most splendid, and all are remarkably curious and 

 some are delightfully fragrant. 



The habitat of many Orchideae is on the trunks and 

 branches of trees, though they are not parasites, their 

 food being chiefly extracted from moist air. Hence 

 their culture is difficult, as the roots require very 

 peculiar media to expand in, and these are particu- 

 larly liable to be preyed on by woodlice. 



ORIOLE (Oriolus}. A genus of omnivorous birds 

 which, in the older systems, included a great many 

 species both of the eastern continent and of America. 

 Further discoveries have led more modern ornitholo- 

 gists to separate them, and form the American ones 

 into a group consisting of two genera, of which some 

 notice will be given in the article TROUPIALES. In 

 consequence of this, the genus Oriole is now restricted 

 to birds of the eastern continent, to all of which the 

 same generic characters apply much better than they 

 do to the western ones. There is one external ap- 

 pearance which is rather striking in these birds, and 

 that is 1 the tendency to have their plumage of a bril- 

 liant golden yellow, which is of course the reason of 

 their having been originally termed orioles, the mean- 

 ing of which is nearly synonymous with golden birds. 



The characters of the genus are : the bill in the 

 form of a lengthened cone, compressed horizontally 

 at its base ; the upper mandible strengthened by a 

 keel along the ridge, notched toward the tip, and , 

 both mandibles with strong tomia or cutting edges ; 

 the nostrils are lateral, naked, and pierced in a large 



