EPIDENDRUM. 377 



Orchid-growers liave been more frequently deceived in buying 

 Epidendriims than any other group of these plants. The pseudobulbs of 

 many kinds are so nearly alike that it is very difficult to tell what they 

 really are until they flower, which may not take place for several years, 

 and then perhaps, instead of being something good, they only produce 

 dingy green flowers of little or no beauty. Nevertheless, some of these 

 insignificant-flowered kinds are very fragrant, and will perfume the 

 whole house in which they are grown. 



Culture. — These plants will all do in the Mexican house, with the 

 exception of E. hicornutmn, which requires the temperature of the East 

 India house to grow it successfully, and may be grown on blocks of wood, 

 but pot culture is the best for the majority of the species. The drainage 

 must be perfect, and sphagnum moss and peat should be used for potting 

 in about equal parts. They require a season of rest, with the same 

 treatment as the Gattleya^, excepting that they need less heat. They are 

 propagated by dividing the plants, as described in the chapter on 

 Pi'opagation. 



E. ALATUM, Batem. — A pretty species, producing its panicles of flowers iu 

 June or July. The pseudobulbs are ovate, bearing two ensate obtuse leaves, and 

 the sweet-scented flowers have the narrow sepals and petals greenish at the base, 

 purple upwards, and the roundish three-lobed lip pale yellow, the broad blunt 

 crispy middle lobe elegantly striped and spotted with rosy purple on the elevated 

 veins. They continue five or six weeks in beautj'. There are several varieties 

 of E. alaimn, but that known as the variety majits, distinguished by its larger 

 size, is the only one worth the attention of amateurs. The E. alalum of the Hot. 

 lieg. is E. ambigunm. — Mexico. 



Tia.—Batcm.. Orclt. Me.r. ct Guat., t. IS ; Bot. Mag., t. 3S9S ; Paxton, Fl. Oard.. 

 i. t. 30 ; Lent. JarcL. Fl., X. 81. 



t>vx. — E. longijH'talum ; E. calochilum ; E.formusnm. 



E. ALCIFOLIUM.— See E. rAiCATUJi. 



E. AMABILE — See E. bicheomuji amabile. 



E. ARACHNOGLOSSUM, Rchl.f.—A free-flowering and very showy plant, in 

 which the stems are erect, simple, terete, clothed below with distichous oblong- 

 lanceolate obtuse fleshy leaves, above which they run out into elongate rigid erect 

 vaginate scapes, bearing at the end a short corymbiform raceme of violet-crimsou 

 flowers; the flowers are small, with oblong acute deep violet-crimson sepals and 

 petals, and a lip of the same colour, three-lobed, the lateral lobes roundish and 

 deeply pectinateh'-laciniate, the middle lobe cuneiform, deeply bi-lobed, the lobes 

 similarly lacerate, having on the disk a callus of five tubercles, of which the four 



