Leiochilus
(from leios, smooth, and cheilos, a lip; in allusion to the smooth labellum). Erroneously spelt Leochilus. SYN. Cryptosaccus. ORD. Orchideae. A small genus (four or five species) of stove epiphytal orchids, natives of the West Indies, Mexico, and Central America, closely allied to oncidium, but differing in having the arms of the column placed below the stigma, and by the presence of a honey-pore at the base of the lip. Flowers usually yellow, small, racemose. Leaves oblong or narrow, flat, narrowed into the petiole. For culture, &c., see Oncidium.
L. carinatus (keeled). fl. panicled, on a long terete peduncle; sepals light copper-coloured; petals with a deep copper-coloured limb, and copper-coloured dots and streaks on a yellow disk; lip yellow, with white crests and chestnut spots and streaks on the disk. l. one to each pseudo-bulb, yellowish-green. Pseudo-bulbs ovoid, ancipitous. Mexico. (Ref. B. ii. 75.) L. cochlearis (spoon-shaped). fl. pale yellow or purple-and-yellow variegated; lip obovate, blunt, crested at base; crest semi-lunar; scape filiform, erect, simple or divided. l. short, oblong, pointed, variable in size, usually exceeded by the scape. West Indies, 1842.
L. oncidioides (Oncidium-like). fl. yellow-green, tinged with red, spreading, uniform, elliptical; lip lemon-colour, blotched with pale purple. April. Pseudo-bulb ovate or oblong-ovate, smooth, green, crowned with a single, oblong-lanceolate, rather rigid, but scarcely coriaceous leaf, acute, and very obscurely striated. Mexico, 1840. (B. M. 3845, under name of Oncidium macrantherum).
L. sanguinolentus (bloody). fl. crimson. La Guayra, 1842.