84 KHIDENDRU.M. 



Fort Royal iu South Carolina ; it is therefore the most northern epiphytal 

 orchid known in the western hemisphere. Of the four hundred described 

 species that are spread over this great region^ by far the greater 

 number have been gathered in elevated localities, especially on the 

 Andes from Bolivia northwards to the isthmus, and their continua- 

 tion through Central America to the Mexican plateau, where and 

 throughout the West Indies the Epidendra are among the commonest 

 of orchids, in some places forming immense tufts that literalh^ 

 strangle the trees to which they attach themselves. So far as at present 

 known they are less abundant within the Brazilian territories, but 

 several are reported from the Organ Mountains and the Serras of 

 Minas Geraes. Throughout the mountain districts they usually occur 

 at a moderate elevation like the Cattleyas and L^lias, but there are 

 some remarkable exceptions — thus it is said of E. frigidiim, " a 

 singular plant with stems a foot and a half high, densely covered 

 with leaves and bearing racemes of small pale rose flowers, grows 

 on wet rocks at but little distance from perpetual snow at the 

 heie-ht of 13,000 feet, both on the Sierra Nevada of Merida' in 

 Venezuela and the volcano of Pasto in Peru. * While a great 

 number of the species are restricted to localities of limited extent 

 there are some as E. ciliare, E. fragrans, and E. vnriegatum that 

 are distributed over an enormous area, and others again Uke E. 

 friqidum mentioned above, which although not common have been 

 gathered in localities widely remote from each other. 



Cultural Note. — The greater number of the species described in the 

 following pages have been introduced either from the mountain regions 

 of South America, where they occur at elevations and live under climatic 

 conditions similar to those of the New Granadian Cattleyas, or from the 

 elevated plateau of Mexico and Guatemala, where they are found under 

 nearly the same conditions as Lcelia ancejjs and its immediate allies L. 

 autumnalis, L. rubescen^, &c. The cultural treatment of the Epidendrums is 

 thence easily deducible from a knowledge of their habitat, or more compre- 

 hensively from their sectional classification, thus — those species included 

 in the Aulizeum and Euepidendrum sections, and which have cylindric 

 or fusiform stems j- may be associated for cultural purposes with the 

 Cattleyas of the labiata group, that is to say, they should receive the 

 same cultural treatment as those Cattleyas ; and those included in the 

 Encyclium, and which have ovoid pseudo-bulbs, and all the Barkerias may 

 ♦ Lindley, Fol. Orch. Ep. No. 286. 



t Epidendrum cnemid.ophomtn and E. Stamfordianuin, although having fusiform stems, 

 being natives of the mountains of Guatemahi should be grown with the Mexican Ltelias. 



