quite accustomed to the kindness of many of my acquaintances, 
who are so good as to correct my statement of its being ornitho- 
cephalum, contending that it is abortwum. Now, having named 
Oncidium abortivum in 1849, a plant with a nearly trifid lip and a 
short heteranthous pyramidal inflorescence, a much rarer species, 
I must know something about that plant. No species is so near 
to O. ornithocephalum as my O. Magdalene (Seemann, Bon- 
plandia, iii. 66), discovered also by Schlim, and found also by 
Wagener. It is exceedingly like O. ornithocephalum, but the 
flowers are larger, with much more brown, with a very acute 
often bent tooth before the callus and no stellate flowers. 
Rhizome creeping or scandent. Pseudobulbs near one another, 
ovoideo-compressed, obtuse-angled, green, sometimes with a 
pruinose hue, one-leaved or two-leaved. Beneath the bulbs two 
triangular sheaths, or two articulate leaves, with cuneate-lanceo- 
late lamine. Leaves of pseudobulbs cuneate-lanceolate acute, 
nearly a span long or shorter, and one inch broad or broader. 
Inflorescence very slender, as much as several feet long, with 
distant sheaths at the flowerless base, with many very short 
branchlets, which are very seldom branched, covered with crowded 
abortive stellate flowers, consisting of four or five linear acuminate 
segments, generally arcuate, and of very few developed flowers. 
Sepals unguiculate oblong acute; tepals decidedly broader. Lip 
very polymorphous, with broad basilar shoulders, oblong, or 
transverse ovate acute, or subquadrate retuse, with an apiculus, 
and obtuse-angled lobes at the base, or triangular, velvety below 
the column. The callus consists of five nearly parallel blunt 
undulated ridges; two small spots, one at each outside, are 
velvety, and then come three or only two angular extrorse keels. 
Column trigonous; wings narrow, long, obtuse-angled at both 
ends, the upper one much more elongated. Infrastigmatic table 
with a spreading angle on each side, and some short hairs over 
the angle. Anther-bed pandurate apiculate. Caudicle triangular, 
with three teeth near the pollinia. Flowers pallid yellow; sepals 
with a transverse cinnamon bar and a broad transverse or double 
band above the lip. 
Materials :—Inspection of Dr. Lindley’s type; a typical flower 
in my possession; also a specimen, “ L. Schlim, No. 296,” quoted 
by Dr. Lindley; several sketches and descriptions made from the 
living plant in the Lindenian, Saundersian, and Hamburgh Botanic 
Gardens; eight herbarium specimens. 
