472 orchid-geower's manual. 



pressed tufted pseudobulbs, ligulate oblong acute leaves, and 

 erect scapes bearing a dense oblong raceme of about a dozen 

 flowers. These flowers are about four and a half inches 

 across and about the same in depth, the lanceolate wavy 

 sepals greenish yellow heavily barred with chestnut brown; 

 and the broad oblong blunt-ended wavy petals pale yellow with 

 a large pale reddish brown darker-veined patch at the base, 

 which is distinctly clawed. The lip, which resembles that of 0. 

 Schlieperianum in shape, as also do the crests and the column, 

 is creamy white in the anterior portion, with a few pale flesh- 

 coloured blotches at the base. This plant was imported along 

 with 0. Schliepenanum, and resembles it in growth. It 

 flowers in July. — Costa Rica. 

 Fig.— Orchid Album, iv. t. 163. 



OnCIDIUM, Swartz. 

 (Tribe Yandese, subtribe Oncidiese.) 



One of the older and also one of the larger genera 

 of Orchids, some two hundred and fifty or more species 

 being known and described, all of them South American. 

 The species are all evergreen, and many of them are very 

 beautiful, their flowers being richly coloured and showy. 

 They make fine plants, both for exhibition and also for 

 decoration. Some of them are large growers, while others 

 are more compact ; they have generally short thick pseudo- 

 bulbs, from which the leaves and flower spikes proceed, but 

 in this respect there is much dissimilarity among them, as 

 there is in respect to their foliage, the majority having the 

 leaves flat, with the flowers in one group is broad-lipped, and 

 in another small-lipped ; while some have the leaves terete, 

 and others have them distichous and equitant. For the most 

 part the flowers have a broad spreading lip contracted at the 

 base, and a short column, bearing two petaloid wings or 

 auricles. The species inhabit Brazil, Bolivia, Mexico, New 

 Grenada,, Ecuador, and the West Indies. 



Culture. — Some kinds succeed well on blocks of wood, but 



