AERIDES MACULOSUM. 
(Spotted Air-plant.) 
Class. Order. 
GYNANDIUA. MONANDRIA. 
Natural Order. 
ORCHIDACBJE. 
Generic Character, — Perianth spreading or closed. 
Sepals lateral, often oblique at the base, having a claw 
connate with the column. Lip with a claw jointed to 
the column, saccate or spurred, three-lobed ; lateral 
lobes short ; middle one cucullate or awl-shaped, or 
' shortly tumid, or partially arched. Column reclining 
I on the ovary, short, winged. Anthers two-celled. 
Pollen-masses two, furrowed at the back. Caudiculce 
broad or filiform ; gland peltate, subrotund. 
Specific Character. — Plant an epiphyte. Leaves 
distichous, channelled, very broad and thick, obso- 
letely notched, obtuse and very obliquely terminated, 
spotted with brown at the edge of the under surface 
near the base ; very densely set. Flowers fragrant, 
rose-coloured, spotted with purple. Sepals ovate- 
oblong, somewhat recurved at the margin, spotted. 
Petals rather smaller, less fleshy, more acute and 
oblique, and more numerously spotted. Lip large, 
ovate; lateral lobes very small, falcate; intermediate 
one very much larger, long, deflexed at the margins, 
undulated, deeper coloured ; spur curved beneath it, 
greenish yellow at the point. 
The specimen of this novel species of Air-plant which supplied the means of 
executing the attached plate, flowered in the choice collection of 0. Horsfall, Esq., 
of Liverpool, and was courteously forwarded to us by that gentleman, in July, 
1844. About the same period we observed flowering specimens at the extensive 
nursery establishments of Messrs. Loddiges, and Messrs. Rollissons. 
The character of the plant, as regards the peculiarities of stem and foliage, 
exhibits a close approximation to the same features of A. ruhrum^ but the leaves 
of that plant are not nearly so broad as in A. mmulomm : indeed, we find 
difierences sufficiently discernible to admit of an easy recognition amongst its 
nearer congeners, upon a very cursory inspection. From A. affine., to which it 
bears considerable analogy in the lineaments and arrangement of the flowers, it 
differs in having much thicker roots, and leaves not more than tv/o-thirds as long, 
but fully a third broader, and instead of the notched extremity they have an obtuse 
and very oblique termination. In addition to these distinctions, the manner in 
which the leaves of A. maculosum are crowded together on the stem is a very 
prominent variation ; and it is rendered sufficiently apparent by this character 
amongst most other species. A. crispiim (or A. Brookii) another kind akin to 
this, is distinctly removed in habit ; that plant has both broader and shorter 
leaves than A. maculosum., and they are also much wider apart, whilst the stems 
evince far greater vigour : and besides these differences, the proportion of the parts 
composing the flower is something varied. 
Our subject is a comparatively scarce species, and had not flowered in tliis 
country prior to the instances above mentioned. It is an East Indian species, 
and was imported from Bombay two or three years ago. 
The flowers are arranged in racemes, which have usually two or three lateral 
VOL. XII. — NO. cxxxv. 
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