98 ORCHIDS. 



is derived from a word meaning " lightning," on account of the 

 "brilliancy of its flowers. Sir Joseph Paxton and Dr. Lindley 

 have thus sj)oken of A. Wallichii : " One of the finest plants 

 ever introduced, and when loaded with its magnificent 

 flowers we think nothing can exceed its grandeur." ""' Mr. 

 Ellis says of it : "I had seen a good-sized plant growing 

 freely at Mauritius, but here it was in its native home, 

 luxuriating on the banks of the stream, its trunk a foot in 

 diameter, its broad-leaved branches stretching over the water, 

 and its large, pink, globular, composite flowers, three or four 

 inches in diameter, suspended at the end of a fine down- 

 covered stalk, nine inches or a foot in length. These, hang- 

 ing by hundreds along the course of the stream, surpassed 

 anything of the kind I had seen, or could possibly have 

 imagined." f 



There are many fine orchids in the Madagascar woods: 

 among these two species of Angrcecum were brought into 

 notice by Mr. Ellis, who was the first to bring specimens of 

 them to England. One of these, the A. sesquipedale, has an 

 extraordinarily long spur; some of those measured by Mr. 

 Ellis being fourteen inches in length, thus nearly approaching 

 the foot and a half to which it owes its name first given 

 by Du Petit Thouars. This spur points to the existence of 

 an insect with an extremely long trunk or sucking-tube for 

 the fertilisation of the flower. The exquisitely white waxy 

 flowers of these orchids are seen very frequently in the 

 forests, masses of the thick fleshy leaves occupying the forks 

 of the branches or any projecting part of the trunk, places 

 which they share with the hart's-tongue and stag's-horn ferns. 

 Mr. Ellis says he " found the trunk of a tree lying quite 

 rotten on the ground, and Angrcecum scsqui2Jedale growing at 

 intervals along its whole length, the roots having penetrated 

 into the decayed vegetable fibre of the tree." In specimens 

 which have been brought to England the pure waxy white 

 flowers preserve all their delicate beauty for more than five 

 weeks. Of another orchid brought to England by Mr. Ellis 

 {Epiplwra jpulesccns) Dr. Lindley says, " This little-known 



* Paxton's Botanical Dictionary, p. 33. 



f Three Visits to Madagascar, p^i. 2S3, 2S6, 290. 



