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numerous fragrant bright yellow flowers , 

 streaked with red, and nearly half an inch 

 across. It is a highly desirable plant, as it i 

 keeps on flowering for nine months of the 

 year. The relationship of the genus is 

 with Polvstachya amongst the Vandece, 

 and it differs chiefly from that genus in 

 the four pollen masses being attached to a 

 distinct though short caudicle. The inside : 

 of the little trident-shaped lip, which is : 

 uppermost in the flower, is bearded with I 

 long hairs. There is only one species I 

 known. [A. A. B.] | 



EPIPHLCEUM. The layer of hark ira- | 

 mediately below the epiderm. The cellu- ; 

 lar integument of the hark. 



EPIPHRAGM. A membrane drawn over 

 the mouth of the spore-case in urn-mosses, 

 and closing it up. 



EPIPHYLLOTTS. Inserted upon a leaf. 



EPIPHYLLUM. A small genus of 

 Cactacece, commonly cultivated in conser- 

 vatories in this country on account of the 

 showy pink or crimson flowers. Only 

 three species are known, all natives of 

 Brazil, where they are generally found 

 upon the trunks of trees. They grow two 

 or three feet high, and have thin cylindri- 

 cal stems, and branches composed of 

 numerous short leaf-like joints growing 

 out of one another, and resembling leaves 

 joined together by their ends. The flowers 

 are produced singly at the extremities of 

 these branches, and are upright and 

 regular in one species, but bent down wards 

 and somewhat two-lipped in the others. 

 The sepals and petals are numerous and 

 coloured alike, so that they are scarcely 

 distinguishable, though the innermost have 

 their bases united into atube ; the stamens 

 are numerous, arranged in two series. The 

 fruit is a small very smooth berry, some- 

 times having angular ribs. 



E. truncatum is the species most fre- 

 quently cultivated in this country, and 

 there are several garden varieties of it, 

 distinguishable only by thesize and colour 

 of their flowers. It is a native of Brazil, 

 particularly of the Organ Mountains, but 

 is seldom found at a greater elevation than 

 4,5W feet. The flat joints of the branches 

 are about two inches long, broad at top, 

 but tapering towards the base, and the 

 flowers, which arc produced from the 

 broad ends of the joints, are bent down- 

 wards, one side of the expanded part being 

 larger than the other : they are pink, 

 crimson, or orancre-coloured, with white 

 stamens. E. Bussellianum, also Brazilian, 

 is readily distinguishable from the last by 

 its flowers being straight, and the petals 

 expanding in a regular manner: the 

 stamens, also, are of the same pink colour 

 as the flower. [A. S.] 



EPIPHYTE ( adj. EPIPHYTAL"). Plants 

 which grow upon the surface of others, as 

 many mosses and orchids. 



EPIPODIUM. A form of disk consisting 

 of glands upon the stipe of an ovary. Also 

 the stalk of the disk itself. 



EPIPOGIUM apliyllum is a curious 

 leafless pale-coloured herb, forming a 

 genus of terrestrial orchids. The root- 

 stock has a number of short thick fleshy 

 fibres like those of Corallorhiza. The 

 stem, about six inches high, bears some 

 small scale-like bracts, and three or four 

 rather large pale yellowish flowers with 

 narrow sepals and petals, and an ovate 

 somewhat concave lip with a thick pro- 

 jecting spur underneath ; the column is 

 short, with a shortly stalked terminal 

 anther. The species has a very wide range 

 in Europe, and temperate Asia, but is 

 generally very scarce, growing here and 

 there among rotten leaves, in woods, and 

 shady places. In Britain it has only been 

 found in a single locality, near Tedstone 

 Delamere in Herefordshire. 



EPIPTEROUS. Having a wing at the 

 summit. 



EPIRHIZOUS. Growing on a root. 



EPISCIA. A small genus of Oesneracece, 

 containing six species, natives of America. 

 They are fleshy, creeping, and rooting 

 herbs, with opposite petiolate leaves, and 

 solitary or aggregated axillary flowers, 

 whose small calyx is free and five-parted, 

 and the corolla erect within the calyx, 

 then obliquely salver-shaped, with the 

 limb five-lobed. The ovary is surrounded 

 at the base by a disc, which swells behind 

 into a gland. The capsule is membrana- 

 ceous, two-celled, with numerous oblong 

 seeds. [W. C] 



EPISCOPEA. Tliemistoclesia. 



EPISPERM. The skin of a seed. 



EPISPORANGIUM. The indusium of a 

 fern when it overlies the spore-cases, as in 

 Aspidhon. 



EPISPORE. A skin which covers some 

 spores. 



EPISTYLITJM. A genus of the spurge- 

 wort family peculiar to Jamaica, contain- 

 ing only a couple of species, one of which 

 is a shrub, the other a tree of about 

 twenty feet ; both have srhooth alternate 

 laurel-like leaves, and minute yellowish- 

 green or reddish flowers disposed in little 

 clusters or racemes, which in E. axillare 

 proceed from the axils of the leaves, and 

 in E. caulifiorum from the bare stems. 

 The sterile and fertile flowers are in the 

 same cluster, the former with a four-parted, 

 the latter with a five-parted calyx. The 

 fruits are little oblong three-sided cap- 

 sules, with three cells and one or two seeds 

 in each. The genus is by some authors 

 united with Phyllonthus, from which it 

 chiefly differs in the four-lobed calyx of 

 the male flowers. [A. A. B.] 



EPITHELIUM. An epidermis consisting 

 of young thin-sided cells, filled with homo- 

 geneous transparent colourless sap. 



EPURGE. (Fr.1 Euphorbia Lathy ris. 



EQUISETACE.E, EQUISETUM. A natu- 

 ral order and genus of the higher crypto- 



