The Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala

Abstract

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. FEW general remarks on the extensive family of Orchidacese, will, perhaps, best introduce what we are about to say respecting that section of the tribe, to which this Work is more immediately devoted ; and, in the hasty observations which follow, we shall abstain, as much as possible, from all details of a purely scientific nature, as an opportunity of treating more fully on that branch of our subject will occur towards the close of our Work. Although the great extent of the species of this order was not even suspected till within the last few years, and though the rage for their introduction is of still more recent date, yet there were some among the earlier botanists, on whom their charms would not appear to have been lost ; especially, the great Rumphius in the Old World, and Hernandez in the New. In the Herbarium Amboinense of the former, his chapter on the " Angr^cums" so he designates the whole tribe) opens with the following passage, which we quote for the edification of our readers : " Now," he exclaims, " now come we to describe a noble family of plants, which is remarkable for having always its dwelling aloft upon the branches of other trees, and which scorns the lowly ground ;-like the seats and castles of the great, which are usually built in elevated situations And, as nobility is distinguished by its appropriate and dignified attire, so this tribe of plants has a towering mode of growth, quite peculiar to itself. "* This eloquent eulogium will sufiice to prove, that the eastern Orchidacese were not without admirers, even in those barbarous times. and their brethren of the West seem to have been equally fortunate, as one of their tribe received attentions of the most marked description from the " Pliny of New Spain," (as Hernandez has been styled), who, not content with using it to decorate almost every page of his work, ventured to dedicate it, as the loveHest plant of the Mexican Flora, to the Lyncean Academicians of Rome, by whom it was immediately adopted, as the peculiar emblem of their learned body.t r Plumier was another botanist, who paid his court to this tribe in an especial manner ; and his figures of some of the West Indian species are models of accuracy and beauty, even at the present day. With these and other examples before us, it will appear surprising that Linn^us should only have been acquainted with one hundred species, of which all those which grew upon trees (making, perhaps, a fourth of the whole) he thrust into his genus Epidendrum. What would be the astonishment of that " father of Botany," could he now but behold his lonely " Epidendrum" multiplied into two hundred genera ! and his one hundred Orchidacese increased to two thousand ! ! J Nay, what if he were assured, that our knowledge of the tribe was only in its infancy, and that, in all probability, not one half of the species had been hitherto discovered ! ! ! * " Nu7iG noUlem describemus herhamm silvestriumfamiliamy qum eo sese distinguit, quod semper in alto habitat, in aliis nempe arboribus, ac spe...

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