174 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
D. Loddigesii, Rolfe (D. pulchellum, Lodd.), is a native of the Island of 
Hainan, and on account of its small size and creeping habit should be grown 
in a shallow pan and suspended near the glass. It is an elegant little plant 
when successfully grown. 
+--+ 
ONCIDIUM HAMATOCHILUM. 
This beautiful Orchid, which is fast becoming rare, is found in this 
Island (Trinidad) only in one district, where, strange to say, Ge 
Lanceanum is only found. This district, the extreme south-western point, 
is called ‘‘ Cedros,” and therefore O. Lanceanum is known locally as “ the 
Cedros bee,” all of the Oncidiums being termed “ bees” from the fancied 
resemblance of the flowers to these insects. 
In some works on Orchids O. hematochilum is described as a distinct 
species, but the writer would be glad to get a decided opinion of some 
authority: on this point, for, to his mind, the appearance of the plant seems 
to indicate that it is a natural hybrid, whose parents are O. luridum and OQ. 
Lanceanum. And in support of his idea the writer gives the following facts 
which he can, and has proved beyond any question of a doubt :—(1) In the 
district where O. hematochilum is found, O. Lanceanum and O. luridum 
are found in quantities, and sometimes growing close to one another, even, 
in some instances, on each other’s roots. (2) These species flower at the 
same time of the year, the dry season (February to April), although O. 
Lanceanum flowers twice a year in Trinidad (February to March and 
September to October). (3) There are two kinds of varieties of O. 
hematochilum., In one the sanguineous blotch in the lip is large and spread- 
ing, and the yellow border small, in the other the blotch on the lip is small, 
and extends only a little below the projections or tubercles at the base of the 
lip, the greater part of the lip being of a bright yellow. The sepals and petals 
are the same in both varieties, but the leaves of the yellow-lipped variety 
are paler than the red-lipped variety. These facts, and the close re- 
semblance of the plant to Oncidium luridum, seem to render the doubt as to 
it being a distinct species justifiable. 
The writer has in his possession some fine specimens of both varieties, 
besides many plants of O. luridum and of O. Lanceanum, and has sown 
seeds from pods of hybridised flowers. Of these seeds he has succeeded in 
raising only one seedling, which will not be of any size for one or two years, 
when he hopes to settle this doubt. Perhaps some reader of the Orchid 
Review might have done so already. 
St. Ann’s, 
ae Tuomas 1T.- POTTER. 
Trinidad, B.W.I. 
[This most interesting communication throws a totally new light on the 
origin of the beautiful Oncidium hematochilum, which has always been 
