ONCIDIUM SPILOPTERUM. 
[PLaTE 510. | 
Native of Brazil. 
Epiphytal.  Pseadobulbs ovate-conical, ribbed, one and a_ half inches high. 
Leaves linear-lanceolate, acute, six to eight inches long, light green. Scape 
racemose, produced from the base of the pseudobulbs, about fifteen inches high, 
bearing six or more flowers; pedicels nearly an inch long. pals and petals 
sub-equal, small, acuminate incurved, greenish outside, brownish purple inside; lip 
three-lobed, front lobe obreniform, three-quarters of an inch wide, half an inch 
high, of a beautiful pale yellow, edge slightly undulate; side lobes very siall 
spathulate; crest spiny, rosy purple, the tip of the spines deep purple. Column 
greenish yellow, with two small trapeziform wings. 
_ Qycrpium sprtoprerum, Lindley, Botanical Register, 1844, miscellaneous matter, 
pa. 76+: Id, 1845,. t. 40. 
Oncipium BaTEMANNIANUM spILopreruM, Lindley, Folia Orchidacea, Article 
Oncidium, No. 185. 
OncipIuM GALLopAvinuUM, Morren, Annales de Gand, i., p. 13. 
The present subject is by some authorities considered to be simply a variety 
of Oncidium Batemannianum, while others believe it sufficiently distinct to give it 
specific rank; Lindley himself appears to have wavered in his opinion, for when 
first publishing it he believed it to be a good species, while later he so far 
modified his views as to state his conviction that it was one of many forms of 
but one type, and consequently he united O. Batemannianum, O. spilopterum: 
O. gallopavinum, O. ramosum, O. Pinellianum, with perhaps 0. caldense into one 
polymorphous species. We would not hesitate to adopt the later views of so acute 
an observer as Lindley, but the fact must not be overlooked that he had but a 
limited amount ‘of material at his disposal, while the wealth of specimens that 
find their Way to our great national Herbaria allows ot wider generalizations than 
Were possible in his days. These considerations have induced us to follow the 
Kew authorities in separating O. spilopterum from its near allies, although, as no 
hard and fast line can be drawn as to what constitutes a species and whet 
variety, it must, to a great extent, always remain a matter of individual opinion. 
O. spilopterum belongs to the section verruci-tuberculata, and is closely allied to 
O. varicosum. 1t is a somewhat variable species, growing about eighteen inches 
high, with oblong-compressed pseudobulbs and narrow pale green leaves. The 
flowers, which are very attractive, are produced in erect racemes from the base of 
a 
