[Plate 51.] 



THE VARIEGATED ONCID. 



(ONCIDIUM VAMEGATUM.) 



A Stove Epiphyte, from the West Indies, belonging to the Natural Order of Orchids. 



Specific Character, 



THE VARIEGA TED ONCID. —Leaves acuminate, fleshy, equitant, serrulate. Flowers paniclecl ; lower sepals united 

 into one spoon-shaped body. Petals obovate, emarginate, unguiculate, cuspidate. Lip with small acute lateral 

 lobes, a broad two-lobed middle lobs with a denticulate unguis, and a double fleshy crest, the upper half consisting 

 of two lobes, the lower of three. Wings of column hatchet-shaped, acuminate, entire. 



Oncidium variegatum: Sioartz act. holm. 1800; p. 240. Idndl. gen. et. sp. Orch., p. 198. 



THIS charming little plant was first introduced from the Havannah, by Sir Charles 

 Lemon, Bart.; later on it was put into circulation by Linden, who gave a plant to 

 the Horticultural Society, in whose garden the materials for the accompanying figure, 

 aided by native specimens, were obtained. It is a small species, growing ill on wood, and 

 hitherto, in cultivation, not moie than a quarter of the natural size. 



When in health the leaves are fleshy, three or four inches long, equitant, sharp-pointed, 

 and very much broken at the edge. The panicle is a foot and a half high, erect, and 

 decorated with flat, pink flowers, richly stained with cinnamon-red on the sepals, and at the 

 base of the sepals and lip. The lower sepals form a blunt spoon-shaped body; the petals are 

 large, obovate, almost retuse, with an intermediate point ; the lip has the middle lobe 

 distinctly placed upon a somewhat serrated unguis; the crest consists of two sets of tubercles, 

 one lying" on the other, the upper set made up of two large lateral ones, and a minute one in 

 the middle, the lower set, of three equal blunt ones, the intermediate of which is curved 

 upwards. 



This Variegated Oncid is very like the Tetrapetalous Oncid, from which it differs in 



