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THE ORCHIDACE^E OF THE WESTERN 
HEMISPHERE. 
_ 
The great natural order referred to in the heading of the pre¬ 
sent paper is one of the most striking and best defined of the 
various groups into which the vegetable kingdom is separated by 
systematists ; it is interesting alike to the botanist, the cultivator, 
and the common observer, a combination of tastes rarely centred 
in a single family; and the more we know of the order, the 
greater becomes our admiration. It is easy to imagine the 
ecstaey of astonishment which must fill the mind of one who, 
for the first time, views a collection of these plants redolent of 
rich colours, singular forms, and fragrance; nor is the interest 
of the botanist altogether beyond conception, who, anxious to 
reduce the specimen to its proper station, overlooks its other 
beauties, and is wrapped in profound wonder at the extraordinary 
departure from prevailing rules which pervades the organs of his 
subject; but to see them in their native wilds, in unrestrained 
luxuriance and freedom, flinging their tortuous roots from the 
point of a jutting rock, overhanging the rapid cataract, with 
whose spray the flexile flower-branch appears to keep a constant 
play of sportive greeting; or snugly nestling in the forked branches 
of an old denizen of the tropic forest, the pendent flowers as¬ 
sume the form of some strange animal, alarmed by unwonted 
noises, from out its stronghold thrusts its misshapen head to eye 
the intruder; when thus seen, how deep the impression on an 
imaginative mind ! the startled fancy forms associations betwixt 
animate and inanimate matter, the connecting link of which is 
furnished by these mingled forms, till absorbed in the amazing 
ii. 1 
