SCHEDULAE ORCHIDIANAE 
NO. 2 
Orchidaceae Quaedam Americana e 
BY 
OAKES AMES 
I N the following pages, new or little-known species from 
tropical America receive attention. The arrangement of 
genera follows the sequence proposed in Engler and Prantl’s 
“ Die Pflanzenfamilien.” 
Selenipedium chica Reichb. f. Xen. Orch. 1 (1854) 
3. t. 2, figs. I, 1-5. 
Cypripedium chica Kfdnzl Orch. 1 (1897) 36. 
Stems leafy, 3 mm. thick near the summit, erect, 3-5 m. 
tall, branching above, the lower part becoming very hard 
as the plants mature, the leafy shoots having the aspect of 
some species of bamboo. Leaves 14-30 cm. long, up to 
4 cm. wide, narrowly elliptic-lanceolate, acuminate, acute, 
subdistichous, obliquely ascending, membranaceous, nervose, 
the lamina contracted at base into a closely oppressed prom¬ 
inently nerved cylindrical sheath. Inflorescence bearing 
twenty or more flowers, terminal, 5 cm. or more long, elon¬ 
gating during an thesis, subtended by much reduced leaves. 
Flowers opening in succession (fruits and buds simulta¬ 
neously present), soon deciduous if pollination fails, the 
perianth and ovary falling away together. Floral bracts 
elongated, about 2.5 mm. apart, inserted at right angles 
to the densely pubescent rachis, or slightly ascending, 8-18 
mm. long, up to 4 mm. wide near the base, lanceolate, acute, 
glandular-pubescent on the upper and lower surface. 
Pedicel with the ovary about 3 cm. long in mature flowers. 
