PAXTON’S 
MAGAZINE OF GARDENING AND BOTANY. 
WAILESIA PICTA. (Painted flowered Wailesia.) 
Class, Gynandiua Order, Monandria. Nat. Order, Orchid ace.®. (Orchids, Veg. Kingd.) 
Generic Character. — Sepals and Petals equal, spreading ; 
lateral ones slightly oblique at the base. Labellum saddle- 
shaped, parallel with the column, and united to it at the 
base, forming by the junction a little sac; middle villous, 
base bidentate ; sac without appendages. Column short, 
truncate, semicylindrical. Anthers two-celled. Pollen 
masses two, globose, excavated at the back. Caudicles two, 
narrow, and diverging, fastened to an ovate gland. 
Specific Character.— Plant an epiphyte, with the habit 
of a Vanda or Angrascum, caulescent. Leaves long, in two 
opposite rows, coriaceous, channelled, three-ribbed, ter- 
minating in an acute nearly oblique point. Peduncle rising 
from the side of the stem, erect, nearly a foot long, deep 
purple, bearing from nine to twelve flowers, each about an 
inch and a half in diameter, externally they are brightly 
spotted with crimson on a pale yellow ground ; inside the 
spots only just show through. Sepals and Petals spreading, 
narrowly oblong, blunt, very nearly alike in size, form, and 
texture, except that the two lateral sepals are slightly 
oblique at the base. Labellum oblong, saddle-shaped, blunt, 
and coarsely woolly at the upper end, shaggy along the 
middle; at the sides it is smooth, and streaked with crim- 
son ; at the base it is flattened and downy, united by the 
edges to the column, so as to form a small sac, but destitute 
of any appendage within the sac, except a small rounded 
callosity ; above the sac, on either side, it has an obtuse 
linear smooth tooth. Column short, stiff, truncated, deep 
yellow at the end, rounded at back and plain in front, 
where it is moreover hollowed out near the base, and closely 
covered with a soft felt. Stigma a small transversed oval 
space near the summit of the column. Anther whitish, 
placed obliquely in rear of the stigma, with an ovate point 
and two-celled. Pollen masses two, globular, partially 
two-lobed, each attached to a long, narrow diverging 
caudicle, holding fast to a common ovate gland. — Dr. 
Lindley's MSS. and des. in Jour. Hort. Soc., vol. iv., p. 261. 
Authority. — Wailesia picta, Lindl. in Jour. Hort. Soc., 
vol. iv., p, 261. 
This new and very handsome Orchid is a native of Malacca, and has been long known to 
Dr. Lindlev in a dried state, as being found in that island by Mr. Veitch’s collector, Lobb, 
and bearing a near relation to the epiphytes, called Tricho glottis, by Dr. Blume, but this 
latter named genus is distinguished by having a distinct appendage within the sac of the 
labellum, and only a single caudicle for its two pollen masses ; in addition to which the 
flowers appear always to grow in short lateral spikes, not in long erect racemes. 
The plant from which our drawing was made was purchased at one of the spring sales 
in London, marked as “ An unknown plant frotn Malacca ; ” it grows at Chatsworth, 
attached to a block of wood with a little sphagnum, and is suspended in the orchid house 
where it grows rapidly, and flowered in September and October last. Although not a very 
showy species, it is well deserving of a place in every choice collection. 
We have not yet been able to increase it; hut as it requires similar treatment to 
Vanda, and other plants of like habits, it may be increased exactly in the same way. 
The generic name is given by Dr. Lindley, in honour of George Wailes, Esq., of 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, a gentleman who has for many years occupied himself with the 
cultivation and scientific study of Orchids. 
T T 
vol. i. — NO. XI. 
