ORCHIDS. 51 
ONCIDIUM BARKERITI. 
Tuis plant — represented by Plate No. XIII.—received its 
name in compliment to Mr. George Barker, a late eminent florist 
of Birmingham, England. The specimen from which our drawing 
was made was very luxuriant in growth, the flower-stalk being over 
four feet long. It was from Mr. Ames’s garden at North Easton. 
The plant much resembles, in foliage and bulbs, the Odonto- 
glossum, the flower a rich brown, barred with yellow. This variety 
is a native of Mexico, and blooms in late winter. 
Our eminent American florist, Henderson, gives the subjoined 
curious and very interesting sketch of the Oncidium genus :— 
“This is perhaps the most extensive and varied genus in the 
order or tribe to which it belongs. Some of its species have ex- 
tremely large pseudo-bulbs; others have pseudo-bulbs very small. 
Another portion are entirely destitute of these, and have, instead, 
thick leathery leaves, which again vary in size from two feet long 
and nearly half as much in breadth, to scarcely six inches in their 
greatest measurement. A third group are distinguished by their 
rounded, rush-like leaves, about the thickness of one’s little finger, 
and from two to four feet long. Besides this, quite as ‘much dis- 
parity exists in the size and color of the flowers, and in the length 
of the flower-spike, which in some species attain to twenty feet; 
while in others to not more than three or four inches, Yet each 
individual plant is beautiful, and worthy a place wherever orchids 
are grown. 
“They are all natives of South America, Mexico, and the 
West Indies; and as they thrive in a much lower temperature than 
