22 ORCHIDS. 
MASDEVALLIA.— For Don Fose Masdevall. 
Tuis genus, belonging to the second, tribe, has its title from a 
Spanish botanist, whose name_is. printed, above. It includes an 
extensive variety of epiphytal orchids, natives chiefly, of the Cor- 
dilleras or mountain ranges of South America. These were but 
poorly represented in orchid collections till about fifteen years ago, 
when Messrs. James Veitch & Son, of England, obtained living 
specimens from Peru. Since that time, new varieties have steadily 
continued to be imported, notwithstanding many difficulties con- 
nected with the removal of these small bulbless plants from cool, 
moist homes in their native highlands, through warm valleys, and 
across the seas. 
Leaves in the wild specimens exceed a foot in length, produc- 
ing a raceme (a form of inflorescence very common in orchids) of six 
or eight flowers, which issue, one above another, from sheathing 
bracts. The flowers have a short cup, with spreading sepals; all 
with long yellow tails, the broader portions of them closely dotted 
over with fine reddish-brown spots; petals and column being 
white, the lip yellow. 
M. Roezl, an eminent orchidist, states that he found, in the 
mountains near Ocana, the Masdevallia growing by hundreds of 
thousands amid low shrubs. 
