18 ONCIDIUM. 



This very interesting species was discovered by Hartweg, in 

 Guatemala, in 1840, while collecting orchids and other plants in 

 that country for the Horticultural Society of London. It is 

 supposed that most of the plants sent home by him perished, as 

 there is no record of any of them having flowered except one 

 that was acquired by Messrs. Loddiges, and which floAvered in 

 their nursery in 1843 ; on the breaking up of their collection a 

 few years later, this plant passed into the hands of Consul 

 Schiller, of Hamburgh.* We find no further mention of this 

 Oncidium till 1865, when a plant flowered in the collection of the 

 late Mr. John Day, by whom it was exhibited at one of the Royal 

 Horticultural Society's meetings in June of that year, and this 

 plant was figured in the Botanical Magazine. The species is better 

 known in European gardens under the name of Palumbina Candida 

 than under that of Oncidium candidum. 



The botanical history of Oncidium candidum is curious. Dr, Lindley 

 never saw the plant that flowered in Messrs. Loddiges' nursery ; the 

 only evidence he possessed of it was a drawing which must have 

 been inaccurately executed, as it represented the caudicle (stipes) 

 double with four pollinia; he therefore doubtfully referred it to 

 Oncidium, adding that " until it shall have been re-examined it is 

 safest to leave it where it stands. "f Assuming the structure as 

 represented by this drawing to be correct, Reichenbach founded upon 

 it the genus Palumbina,^ and yet, with Consul Schiller's plant 

 previously at hand, and which had been acquired at his request, he, 

 two years later, re-publishes in the Gardeners' Chronicle his genus 

 Palumbina, one of its distingaishiiig characteristics being described 

 thus : Caudicula polliuis (sic) utriusque caudiculee tertise communi 

 inserta," an expression we are unable to understand, as no such 

 structure is observable in the poUinary apparatus of the flower. The 

 true structure is clearly shown by Mr. N. E. Brown in the Gardeners' 

 Chronicle lac. cit., and whose accurate drawings of the details of 

 the flower are here reproduced by the courtesy of the publisher. 

 We have since been able to verify the correctness of these floral 

 details from an examination of flowers produced in our houses. 



* Reichenbach in Gard. Chion. 1865, p. 793. 

 t Fol. Orch. Oncid. No. 53. J Walp. Ann. VI. p. 699. 



