188 



PAXTON'S FLOWER GARDEN". 



racemose panicle ; in what appears to be the same thing wild they form a loose branched 

 panicle of considerable size. Bracts very short, scale-like. Sepals and petals from an ovate 

 base linear-lanceolate, acuminate, spreading equally and very wavy. Lip of the same form 

 and colour, but shorter, downy, very slightly halberd-shaped near the base, which is yellow, 

 with the edges of the claw clasping the column. Teeth of the crest yellow, rather small, 

 distinct, with about three unequal blunt lobes to each ; downy. Column downy, narrowed to 

 the base, with a pair of awl-shaped ears near the summit, below the anther-bed. 



The resemblance of this to the Long-tailed Oncid (0. pliymat ocJiilum) is so great as to 

 raise a question as to the distinction between Oncids and Odontoglots. We have often 

 opened this discussion, and endeavoured to show how the two genera could be certainly 

 separated ; but it must be owned that, after all, there is something vague and unsatisfactory 

 in the characters usually assigned to the genera. Species, indeed, have been indifferently 

 placed in one or the other, or species stationed in the Oncids by one botanist have been 

 referred to the Odontoglots by another. It will therefore be useful to explain that, in 

 addition to any other distinction, this may be taken as unexceptionable, namely, that the 

 Oncids have a short column, tumid at the base in front, as in the annexed cut of Oncidium 

 phgmatocliilam, while the Odontoglots have a lengthened column without any such tumour. 



The management of this, and all such plants, is precisely what is required for the Spotted 

 Oncid (0. maculatum). 



