THE PURPLE-STAINED L/ELIA (L/ELIA PURPURATA). 

 A magnificent stove Epiphyte from St. Cathe- 

 rine's in Brazil, belonging to the order of Orchids. 

 The pseudobulbs are oblong, and pi-oduce at their 

 end a narrow oblong blunt leaf, as broad at one end 

 as the other, about eight inches long, and deeply- 

 notched at the point. In the axil of the leaf comes 

 a compressed pale green spathe fully three inches 

 long, and much like that of Cattleya labiata. The 

 peduncle which appears from within this is stout, 

 deep-green, and two-flowered. The flowers are rather 

 more than six inches from the tips of the petals. 

 Sepals and petals pure white ; the former linear- 

 lanceolate, rolled back at the edge towards the base 

 and thus appearing unguiculate ; the latter three 

 times as broad, ovate-oblong, obtuse, wavy. The lip 

 is three inches long, rolled round the column, with a 

 much-rounded point from which the rounded lateral 

 lobes are hardly distinguishable ; it is yellow in the 

 middle towards the base and streaked with crimson, 

 • but the limb is of the deepest and richest purple, 

 diminishing in intensity towards the edge. 



