ADA AURANTIACA. 
[PuaTe 53. ] 
Native of New Grenada. 
Epiphytal. Pseudobulbs sub-cylindrical, tapering upwards, three to four inches 
long, sheathed with reddish scales at their base. Leaves terminal, channelled, broadly 
linear, four to six inches long, one to three in number. Scape terminal, longer 
than the leaves, bisquamate, bearing a drooping spike of from ten to fourteen rather 
distichously placed flowers, which have each a scariose lanceolate-subulate bract at 
its base. Flowers brilliantly coloured, the perianth closed below, and only opening 
in the upper part; sepals sub-equal, of a bright orange or cinnabar-red, spreading 
only from above the middle, linear-lanceolate, much acuminate, the lateral ones 
somewhat oblique at the base; petals smaller, but similar in form and colour; lip 
of the same _ bright orange-red, undivided, parallel with the column, and adnate to 
its base, lanceolate, shortly acuminate, scarcely half the length of the sepals, with a 
crest formed of two connate membranaceous lamell, pubescent inside’ near the base. 
Column short, thick, wingless; anther case hemispherical; pollen-masses two, obovate, 
seated on a cuneate caudicle, arising from a gland. 
| ADA auRANTIAcA, Lindley, Folia Orchidacea, art. Ada; Hooker, Botanical 
Magazine, t. 5435; Bateman, Second Century of Orchidaceous Plants, t. 1 i3: 
André, L’Illustration Horticole, 3 ser., t. 107; Williams, Orchid Grower's Manual, 
5 ed., 62. 
MEsosPINIDIUM AURANTIACUM, Reichenbach fil., in Walpers’ Annales Botanices 
Systematice, vi., 857. 
This is the only member of the genus Ada with which ‘we are yet acquainted, 
and even this is by some authorities referred to Mesospinidium. Whether forming 
a distinct genus or not, it is a well marked and charming Orchid, one by means 
of which a fine contrast of colour can be insured in the arrangements made for 
the decoration of our Orchid houses. The accompanying plate was taken from a 
fine specimen which bloomed in the Victoria and Paradise Nurseries, but as our 
page is limited in size only a portion of the plant could be represented. This 
plant bore twenty of its graceful and_brilliantly-coloured spikes of flowers. When 
thus successfully cultivated no one could fail to admire the Ada aurantiaca, the 
more so as it is one of the Orchids which thrive in a cool house, and plants can 
be purchased at a very small cost. 
Ada aurantiaca is an evergreen species of remarkably free habit. It grows 
about ten inches high, and has foliage of a fine dark green colour. It produces 
its flower spikes from the young growths, between the leaves, one or two together, 
the spikes being drooping towards the extremity and the flowers of a bright 
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