AERIDES LOBBIL. 
[PLATE 21.] 
Native of Moulmein. 
Epiphytal. Stems erect, densely foliose, producing the stout aérial réots from 
between the leaf bases. Leaves evergreen, close set, distichous, leathery in texture, 
loriform, channelled, obliquely bilobed at the apex, of a deep green colour, obsoletely 
spotted with purple, paler on the under surface. Racemes axillary, many-flowered, 
long, branched, cylindrical, pendulous. Flowers very numerous, medium-sized, fragrant, 
the sepals and petals white, flushed with rosy purple and spotted with deeper rose- 
purple, the broader lip with a bar of rosy purple, darkest in the centre, from base 
to apex, and bordered with white; sepals and petals elliptic-oblong, nearly equal, 
meurved ; lip much larger, clawed, the claw hollowed out and coadunate with the 
base of the column, the limb ovate or somewhat lozenge-shaped, wavy at the margin ; 
‘pur arcuate, somewhat compressed laterally. Colwmn short, in form resembling the 
neck and beak of a bird, with the front edge produced and folded over the 
stigmatic cavity, 
_ Aires Lospi, Hort. Veitch ; Lemaire, Illustration Horticole, xv., t. 559; 
Williams, Orchid Growers’ Manual, ed. 5, 67; Rand, Orchids, 149; Britten & 
Gower, Orchids for Amateurs, 177. 
This very beautiful brightly-coloured plant was discovered in Moulmein by Mr. 
Thomas Lobb, who sent it to the Messrs. Veitch & Sons, of Chelsea, about the year 
1856. It is of remarkably free-flowering and decorative character, and is no doubt 
one of the most beautiful species of this fine genus of Orchids, being valuable alike 
on account of its compact-growing habit, and the strikingly ornamental nature of 
its inflorescence. There appear to be several varieties of this plant distributed 
through our Orehid collections, all of them handsome and deserving of cultivation, 
a that which we now illustrate, from a_ finely’ grown, elegantly branching spike, 
dly Sent to us by C. J. Hill, Esq., of Nottingham, and referred to in the note 
published under Plate 15, is the finest form, and the most freely bloomed specimen 
. have met with, We were, in truth, charmed with the size and colour of the 
otis of this plant, when recently inspecting Mr. Hill’s collection, the long spikes 
»ssom which were produced by so small a plant being quite extraordinary. 
: There 1S no genus of Orchids that surpasses Aérides in having handsome ever- 
cs eae: So that, even when not in blossom, they are exceedingly pretty objects ; 
: this it must be added, that their flower-spikes are beautiful, and their — 
