GENEALOGY. 127 



of ugly blossoms of which the characteristic is the spiral curve 

 and protraction of their central petal : and every other form 

 of Satyric ugliness which I find among the Ophryds, whatever 

 its colour, will be grouped with them. And I make them 

 central, because this humour runs through the whole order, 

 and is, indeed, their distinguishing sign. 



11. Then the third group, living actually in the air, and 

 only holding fast by, without nourishing itself from, the 

 ground, rock, or tree-trunk on which it is rooted, may of 

 course most naturally and accurately be called ' Aeria,' as it 

 has long been popularly known in English by the name of 

 Air-plant. 



Thus we have one general name for all these creatures, 

 ' Ophryd ' ; and three family or group names, Contorta, Saty- 

 rium, and Aeria, every one of these titles containing as much 

 accurate fact about the thing named as I can possibly get 

 packed into their syllables ; and I will trouble my young 

 readers with no more divisions of the order. And if their 

 parents, tutors, or governors, after this fair warning, choose 

 to make them learn, instead, the seventy-seven different names 

 with which botanist-heraldries have beautifully ennobled the 

 family, all I can say is, let them at least begin by learning 

 them themselves. They will be found in due order in pages 

 1084, 1085 of Loudon's Cyclopaedia.* 



12. But now, farther: the student will observe that the 

 name of the total order is Greek ; while the three family 

 are ones Latin, although the central one is originally Greek 

 also. 



I adopt this as far as possible for a law through my whole 

 plant nomenclature. 



* I offer a sample of two dozen for good papas and mammas to begin 

 T'ith : 



Angraecum. Corallorrhiza. Ornithidium. Prescotia. 



Anisopetalum. Cryptarrhena. Ornithocephalus. Renanthera. 



Brassavola. Eulophia. Platanthera. Rodriguezia. 



Brassia. Gymnadenia. Pleurothallis. Stenorhyncus. 



Caelogyne. Microstylis. Pogonia. Trizeuxis. 



Calopogon. Octomeria. Polystachya. Xylobium. 



