CELIA BELLA. 
[PLATE 51,1 
Native of Guatemala. 
Kpiphytal. Pseudobulbs roundish-ovate, sub-compressed, pale green, the older 
ones oblong-ovate. Leaves of a light green colour, about ten inches in height, three 
or four from the top of the pseudobulb, narrow ensiform acuminate, plicate, five- 
ribbed, convolutely sheathing at the base. Scape radical, short, clothed with bifarious 
sheathing bracts, four to seven-flowered. lowers of moderate size, tricoloured, 
emitting a very sweet odour, the perianth tubular below, funnel-shaped above, the 
bracteoles oblong, obliquely dimidiate; sepals and petals similar, somewhat fleshy in 
texture, creamy white tipped with magenta-rose, the upper sepal shorter, oblong 
obtuse, terminating abruptly at the pedicel, the lateral ones produced behind into a 
blunt spur adnate to the base of the column; lip yellow, produced at the base, 
and abruptly replicate, forming a cucullate cavity enclosed within the spur, oblong, 
three-lobed, the lateral lobes short quadrate, the middle lobe linguiform acute, with 
a large fleshy orange-coloured convex callosity occupying the disk. Column white, 
broadly cuneate, three-toothed at the apex. 3 
~Ca@Lia BELLA, Reichenbach fil., in Walpers’ Annales Botanices Systematice, 
vi., 218; Hooker fil., Botanical Magazine, t. 6628. 
BIFRENARIA BELLA, Lemaire, Jardin Fleuriste, iii., t. 325. 
BorHRiocHiLus BELLUSs, Lemaire, L’ Illustration Horticole, iii., 30. 
We have in this plant a representative of a small genus of Orchids, few of the 
species of which are worthy of cultivation. That now before us is, however, a very 
pretty and curious plant, as will be scen by a glance at our plate. We believe 
that Celia bella was introduced about thirty years ago by the Messrs. Loddiges, 
of Hackney, but at the present time it is extremely scarce. Lemaire, by whom 
it was described and figured in 1853, in the volume of Jardin Fleuriste above 
quoted, states that it was introduced about the same period, from the Island of 
St. Catherine’s, to the Belgian Gardens, by M. Ambroise Verschaffelt, through his 
collector, M. F. Devos, but Sir Joseph Hooker has recently pointed out that there 
are specimens of it in Lindley’s Herbarium, collected in Guatemala by Mr. Skinner, 
and that, like its congeners, it is probably a native of Central America. For the 
opportunity of preparing our figure, we are indebted to the courtesy of J. C. Bowring, 
Esq., Forest Farm, Windsor Forest, by whom it is flowered freely every year. 
Celia bella is a compact-growing evergreen plant, with small globose or ovoid © 
pseudobulbs of a light green colour. The ensiform foliage is also light green, and 
grows about ten inches high. The flower-spikes proceed from the base of the 
3 
