SEPTEMBER, 1916.| THE ORCHID REVIEW. gir 
and powerful fragrance, long before he either saw the plant or could find 
where it grew. Neither money nor entreaty could induce him to part with 
it; and though he took Mr. Colley to the spot where he obtained it, not 
another morsel of it could be found. Later on, however, Colley met with 
it elsewhere, for after about five days’ sail up the Demerara River, he 
stumbled upon a solitary tree which was covered from head to foot with 
this Oncidium, and he immediately set to work and stripped the tree. It 
is said to have retrieved the fortunes of the expedition, and Bateman has 
recorded that “when a large healthy cargo was known to have arrived, 
everyone, save the fortunate possessors of Mr. Lance’s specimens, were 
prepared to go down on their knees for a bit, offering their greatest 
treasures in exchange, and in this way, without any money passing, I 
became possessed of bits of all the then-known species that I cared to have.” 
Oncidium Lanceanum has since been found in other places in British 
Guiana, and at the extreme south-western point of Trinidad, known as the 
Cedros district, where is found also O. luridum—a widely diffused plant 
at low elevations in the West Indies and on the adjacent coasts of Central 
and South America—and the beautiful O. hematochilum, Lindl., as we 
know on the authority of Mr. T. T. Potter (0.R.., iii. p. 174). The latter 
was originally recorded as a native of New Grenada, and was long known as 
a species, though Mr. Potter proved both points to be incorrect. 
It appears that in Trinidad O. Lanceanum is known as the ‘‘ Cedros 
Bee.” (the Oncidiums being called “ bees ” from the fancied resemblance of 
the flowers to these insects), and that in the district where O. hzmatochilum 
is found, O. Lanceanum and O. luridum also occur in quantities, sometimes 
growing close together, even in some instances on each other’s roots. They 
flower at the same time of the year, the dry season, February to April 
(O. Lanceanum also flowering again in September and October), and there 
are two kinds of varieties of O. hematochilum, one having a large 
sanguineous blotch on the lip and a narrow yellow border, the other with a 
yellow lip and a small crimson blotch. Owing to the belief that O. 
hzmatochilum was a hybrid between the two others, Mr. Potter crossed 
them together, and succeeded in raising a single seedling. It affords a 
curious confirmation of a remark by Lindley, ‘ Intermediate, as it were, 
‘between O. Lanceanum and luridum.” It was an interesting discovery, 
for the history of O. hzematochilum was thus summarised by Messrs. Veitch, 
in 1892. ‘‘ First imported in 1847 by Messrs. Loddiges, from New Grenada, 
it is said, and since that date it has appeared at intervals in various Orchid 
collections in Great Britain ; its habitat is, however, virtually unknown to 
science.” Mr. Potter added that in Trinidad O. hematochilum is only found 
