MAXILLAEIA. 



163 



M. venusta. 



Pseudo-bulbs oval-oblong, much compressed, 2 — 3 inches long, mono- 



phyllous. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, acute, 12 — 15 inches long, narrowed 



below into a short foot-stalk. Scapes nodding, 6 — 12 inches long; bracts 



lanceolate, acute, sheathing, 1| inch long. Flowers 5 — 6 inches across 



the lateral sepals ; sepals and petals lanceolate, acuminate, white, the 



former spreading, the latter much shorter and nearly parallel with the 



column; lip much shorter and more fleshy than the other segments, 



the upper surface buff-yellow, the lower one cream-white with a few 



red spots, three-lobed ; the side lobes roundish oblong ; the intermediate 



lobe ovate, obtuse, reflexed, downy ; plate of disk oblong, nearly flat. 



Column clavate, triquetral, whitish. 



Maxillaria venusta, Lindl. ex Rchb. in Bonpl. 1854, p. 277. Walp. Ann. VI. 

 p. 514. Linden's Pesc. t. 38. Bot. Mag. t. 5296. M. Anatomorum, Rchb. Xen. 

 Orch. I. p. 188, t. 67. M. Kalbreyeri, Rchb. in Gard. Chron. XXIII. (1885), 

 p. 239. 



Originally discovered by Linden in 1842 on the Cordillera of 

 Venezuela in the province oE Merida, but not introduced till 1851, 

 when it was re-discovered by Schlim on the eastern Cordillera of 

 New Granada, near Ocaiia, and sent by him to M. Linden's horti- 

 cultural establishment at Brussels, where it flowered for the first 

 time in Europe in 1854. Maxillaria venusta is well known as one 

 of the most beautiful of the genus, easily recognised by its long, 

 acuminate, milk-white sepals and petals. 



SUB-TRIBE ONCIDIE^. 



Rhizome very short, usually terminating in mono-diphyllous pseudo- 

 hulbs with a few distichous leaves or leaf-sheaths under them in the 

 axils of which the scapes or peduncles arise, but in a few genera 

 the pseudo-hulbs are wanting. Flowers often showy ; the column not 

 produced into a foot; the pollinia with a distinct stipes {caudicle) .* 



* The sub-tribe Oncidie/E is one of the most extensive and, in a horticultural sense, one of 

 the most important in the Order. Mr. lientham has included in it thirty-six genera, all of them 

 American, which are distributed into live series, chietly in reference to the characters of the 

 labellum and its attachment to the coluiim. Of these series the fourth comprises a large 

 number of species familiar to orchid growers as Odontoglots, Oncids, Miltouias and lirassias. 

 On account of the horticultural importance of many of the included genera, more space i.s 

 ^evoted in this work to this sub-tribe than to any other. 



