226 TlMEHRI. 
an Epidendron, was very common on the boulders;* 
and another, this time a terrestrial orchid, either a 
Spiranthcs or very closely allied to that genus, was 
not only more striking in appearance than most of 
this comparatively insignificant genus but surpassed 
every other orchid known to me, without ex- 
ception, in the excellence of its scent. The only 
other species of the genus known to me in Guiana is 
found, not uncommonly, in the sandy soil where moras 
grow ; it is very insignificant in appearance and it 
smells, oddly enough, much as do cockroaches. But 
this second species, from Mount Russell, is readily dis- 
tinguishable by its considerably greater size, by the rich 
creamy white colour of its blossoms, and as being one of 
the sweetest scented flowers known to me ; we agreed 
that its scent is exactly like that of the plant familiarly 
known as lemon-scented verbena ; yet it was much more 
more powerful and at the same time more delicate. One 
plant of this fine orchid had the further attraction of 
prettily variegated leaves, f 
At last we broke through the bush on the edge of the 
cliff. The sight we saw was certainly wonderful and 
unusual in Guiana. Far below, from the foot of the pre- 
cipice on which we stood, as far as the eye could reach 
lay one enormous tree-covered plain with nowhere a break, 
even of a few yards^ in the very many miles which 
lay in our sight, in the vast sheet of leafage. To 
* The plant has since flowered in my garden. It proves to be an 
Epidendron, unseen by me elsewhere in the colony, but with only a 
small, insignificant white flower. 
f I am glad to say that I now have both the plain and variegated 
forms of this orchid in a growing state. 
