ORCHIDACEiE . 



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of the chief beauties of the forest, for they clothe, with their 

 rich leaves and glowing-coloured flowers, the trunks of the 

 trees, particularly those which are fallen and decaying, thus 

 concealing by their beauty and grace, what might otherwise 

 present only objects sombre and unsightly. 



Botanical travellers speak in high terms of the beauties 

 presented by the Orchis tribe in various parts of the tropics, 

 which the following extracts will show. Mr. Low meets 

 with them in Borneo, and he says: — -"As in all tropical 

 countries, the tribe Orchidacea is in profusion and beauty, 

 and on the open banks of the rivers, where the sun can shed 

 its vivifying influence upon them, these delightful Epiphytes 

 decorate with their fragile but showy forms the otherwise 

 naked and unsightly stumps of decaying forest-trees." Mr. 

 Wallace, when travelling on the banks of the "Rio Negro, 

 makes remarks on this splendid Order, and more particularly 

 on one genus, in the following words : — " But what lovely 

 yellow flower is that suspended in the air between two 

 trunks, yet far from either ? It shines in the gloom as if its 

 petals were golde Now we pass close by it, and see its 

 stalk like a slender wire, a yard and a half long, springing 

 from a cluster of thick leaves on the bark of a tree. It is 

 an Oncidium, one of the lovely Orchis tribe, making these 



