ODONTOGLOSSUM VEXILLARIUM ROSEUM. 
[PLatE 348. | 
Native of New Grenada. 
Epiphytal. Pseudobulbs small, from an inch and a half to two inches (or more) 
high, narrowly oblong, compressed, pale green, and furnished with numerous accessory 
leaves, which spring from the base, and envelope the pseudobulbs when young. 
Leaves narrowly elliptic, lanceolate, acuminate, slightly keeled at the back, from six 
inches to a foot long, upwards of an inch wide, and of a pale green hue on both 
surfaces. Scape radical, several arising simultaneously from one pseudobulb, longer 
than the leaves, and terminating in a raceme of from five to seven large and 
showy flowers. Sepals and petals obovate-oblong, acute, recurved, the petals being 
slightly broader and more obtuse, the whole of a soft rose colour ; lip very large 
and flat, deeply two-lobed in front, and contracted into a claw at. the base ;_ the 
colour a uniform clear rose; the claw a pale yellow, with a few red_ streaks, 
Column very short, yellow. 
ODONTOGLOSSUM VEXILLARIUM RosEUM, Hort. Williams, Orchid-Grower’s Manual, 
6 ed., p. 468. 
Odontoglossum vexillarium is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful of the 
Odontoglots, notwithstanding the fact that Professor Reichenbach has suggested that 
0. Warscewiczii might prove a dangerous rival; but the last-named species has not 
yet proved itself to be half so beautiful as the plant here depicted, which appears 
to have been first found by Bowman on the western slope of the Andes of 
New Grenada, and was first received in a living state in this country by Messrs. 
J. Veitch and Sons, of Chelsea, through Mr. Chesterton. The plant in question is 
one of the freest-growing and most profuse-blooming kinds in the whole genus ; 
but it is subject to great variation, both in size and colours of its flowers. We 
have already figured two very distinct varieties of this species in the Orchid Album, 
viz: Vol. iv., plate 171, shows a lovely form called O. vexillarium superbum, the 
colours being very rich and distinct, the deepest in fact which we have hitherto 
seen; and in Vol. v., plate 227, is a faithful representation of O. vexillarium album, 
in which the colour is entirely absent and the flowers are of the purest white. 
Both these forms still remain very rare in cultivation. Here we have the pleasure 
of bringing before our readers the portrait of a charming rose-coloured form, which 
claims a record in these pages with the other two. Besides these, however, there 
are many other fine varieties with large blooms. 
Our drawing was taken from a very fine specimen grown in the collection of 
~M. le Comte de Germiny, Chateau de Gouville, France. This specimen bore eighteen 
