310 oechid-gkowee's manual. 



E. atropurpureum roseum, Rchh. f. — A beautiful variety of 

 E. atropurpureum, in which the broad ample lip is wholly 

 dark rose colour ; it blooms at the same time as the type, and 

 lasts long in beauty. It is equally with it a most desirable 

 plant. — Guatemala. 



Fig. — Batem. Orch. Mex. et Guat., t. 17 ; Paxfon, Mag. Bot, xi. 243, with 

 tab. ; Fl. des Serves, t. 306 ; Fescatorea, t. 27 ; Illust. Hort., t. 541. 



E. aurantiacuin, Batem. — A distinct species, similar in 

 growth to Cattleya Skinneri ; indeed, the stems so nearly 

 resemble those of that plant as to lead to its being often 

 mistaken for it. The stems are clavate, a foot high, two- 

 leaved, and producing their flowers from a sheath at the top 

 of the stem. The leaves are oblong emarginate, flat, leathery. 

 The flowers are in short somewhat drooping dense racemes, 

 of a bright orange, with the lip of the same colour, striped 

 with crimson, the sepals and petals lanceolate, and the lip 

 oblong cucullate, the base folded over the column, and 

 having three elevated lines on the disk. It blooms in March, 

 April, and May, lasting six weeks in perfection if kept in a 

 cool house. There are two varieties of this plant, both of 

 which we have had growing in the same house under the same 

 treatment. The best variety opens its flowers freely, while 

 in the other they keep nearly closed — a peculiarity which 

 renders the latter not worth growing. — Mexico and Guate- 

 mala. 



Fig. — Batem. Orch. Mex. et Guat., t. 12 ; Gartevfora, t. 158. 



S>YS.—E. aureum—i. Rchb. 



E, bicomiLtllin, Hook. — A remarkably handsome Orchid, 

 which Mr. Bentham separates with three other species to 

 constitute the genus Diacrium., distinguished by its lip being 

 spreading instead of adnate to the base of the column, and by 

 the presence of two hollow horns between its lateral lobes. 

 It has fusiform furrowed stems a foot or more in height, the 

 younger ones leafy at the summit ; the leaves distichous, 

 ligulate-oblong, leathery, dark green ; and the peduncles 

 terminal on the mature stems, sometimes producing in one 

 raceme as many as twelve beautiful flowers, each about two 

 inches across, of a pure white, with a few crimson spots in 

 the centre of the lip, which has an elongate lance-shaped 

 middle lobe. It blooms in April and May, lasting two or 

 three weeks in beauty. This species is rather difiicult to 

 cultivate. The best plant we ever saw was grown on a block 



