175 
ONCIDIUM PAPILIO. 
(butterfly-plant.) 
class. order. 
GYNANDRU. MONANDRIA. 
NATURAL ORDER. 
ORCHIDACEtE. 
Generic Character. — See vol. iv, p. 77. 
Specific Character. — Plant an Epiphyte. Leaves solitary, oval, dark green, with numerous irregular 
brown spots. Scape articulated, two-edged, few-flowered ; upper sepals longest, linear ; lower ones 
distinct, ovate-lanceolate,' undulated at the margins. Column two-horned, otherwise fimbriated. 
In almost every tribe of plants there are some species which attract universal 
attention, while others are either wholly overlooked or regarded with comparatively 
little interest. Amongst orchidaceous plants there are few which have been more 
generally admired, or have become greater favourites, than the beautiful species of 
which a drawing is here given. 
With little of the striking magnificence for which some of the members of this 
charming tribe are remarkable, there is something so pleasing and interesting in 
Oncidium papilio^ that it never fails to engage the eye of every lover of plants, and 
elicit the warmest admiration and delight. It is difficult to state in what par- 
ticular part of the plant the attraction resides, since every feature is more or less 
intrinsically interesting. Its handsomely-maculated and mottled foliage, its slender, 
w^iry stem, waving gracefully with the slightest agitation of the atmosphere, and 
surmounted by what might readily be mistaken for an elegant ephemera, till the 
observer, in his eagerness to possess himself of so beauteous a novelty, discovers 
that it is attached to the plant, constituting indeed its flower, and playfully 
upbraids nature for the formation of objects so very illusory, conjoined with the fact, 
that the flowers are produced in such rapid succession that the plant is seldom un- 
ornamented by them, will in some measure account for the high and extensive 
favour it has obtained. 
