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CrMANDKlA LlNS^i. 
T R A N S C E N D E N 1' E P I D E N D R U M. 
E P I D E N D R U iM FLOS A E R I S. 
A L L tilings confpirc, wliich cjn be valuable in a Plant, to recommend this to our 
regard ; and eftabliili its juft title to the name Tranfcendent. We admire fome 
for colour, others for fmell ; fome for the pleafing wildnefs of their growth, and many 
for their vaft and numerous Flowers : this has all. Its height is determin’d only by that 
of the tree on which it climbs ; for like our Ivy, it takes hold of fome tree, winding its 
tough Stalk round the trunk, and fcattcring its divifions among the branches. The Plant 
from whence the fpecimen was taken, cover’d a tree equal to our talleft Elms, and many 
hundred Flowers were open upon it together. 
The Leaves are not without their beauty, for they phay in many undulations, and have 
a line colour; the Flowers are as fingular as any thing in nature. The Chinese, from 
their figure, give the Plant a name which fignifies the Scorpion Flower ; for they fuppofe 
a refemblance of a head, a body, and lour legs: and they are fo indifferent naturalifts 
they never think of the abfurdity of a four-leg’d Scorpion. 
The colour of the Flowers is yellow in the ground, and they are clouded and fpotted 
varioufly with a fine deep crimfon. The Petals turn back at the fides and ends ; other- 
wife the body of the Flower would be much fuller, and would appear larger. They 
have the fragrance of the animal perfumes : the feent is fuch as an artful perfon might 
produce from a mi.\ture of mufk and civet, where neither was predominant nor the 
whole fo ftrong as to be offenfive. 
The Flower has no Cup : it is plac’d naked upon the Rudiment of the fruit ; which 
is long and lightly furrow’d. Its body is compofed of five diftina and wide expanded 
Petals. In the centre, where Filaments, and a Style might be expeaed, is plac’d a fingu- 
lar body, a Neaarium, form’d of four pieces. Three of thefe are flat, the fourth, or 
uppermoft, is thick and hollow ; and thefe all unite at their bafes in a tubular body, which 
takes its origin from the very head of the young fruit. Within the hollow part of the 
Neaarium rifes the ftyle, and upon that are fix’d the Anthers. They are two, and they 
have very Ihort Filaments. The fruit which follows, is a long flelhy pod like the com- 
mon Vanilla. 
The charaaers of a clafs, diflerent from all thofe w’e have before nam’d, appear in this 
Flower ; it is that of the Gynandria ; which have their name from the peculiar fltuation 
of the male parts upon the female : the buttons growing upon the ftyle. 
Tis fingular that the fine feent of this Flow'er refides in the Neaarium, and the Petal 
to w'hich that principally adheres ; which is that fuppofed to reprefent the body of the 
Scorpion. It is ftrongeft when the Flower juft opens, and grows weaker from that time, 
but the profufion of bloom makes this lefs regarded on the Plant. 
Epidendrum caulc adfccndcntc tcrcii fubramofo ; foliis laaccolatis j peulis lincaribus obtufis. 
The Scorpion Flower. 
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