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Ornithidium (From ornis ornithos a bird)

(from ornis, ornithos, a bird, and eidos, like; the upper lip of the stigma is beak-like). ORD. Orchideae. A genus comprising about a score species of stove epiphytal orchids, natives of tropical America, from Brazil to the West Indies. Flowers mediocre, or rather small; sepals sub-equal, free, spreading; petals similar to the sepals, or somewhat smaller; lip affixed to the foot of the column, unguiculate at base; peduncles one-flowered, fasciculate in the axils. Leaves oblong or elongated, thinly coriaceous. Stems, in some species ascending, and in others root-like and branching, sheathed with imbricated scales, and bearing one-leaved pseudo-bulbs. The species described below (probably the only ones yet introduced) thrive in a warm, moist house, and do best in pots of peat fibre, sphagnum, and pieces of charcoal. During summer, they like a plentiful supply of water. O. coccineum (scarlet). fl. crimson, long-pedicellate, fascicled, nodding; sepals and petals spreading, ovate-lanceolate, pointed; lip undivided, ovate-oblong, bluntish, contracted above the base. June. l. approximate, linear-lanceolate, blunt, emarginate, 6in. to 12in. long. Pseudo-bulbs oval or roundish, compressed. Stem low, scaly below. Jamaica, &c., 1790. (B. M. 1437, under name of Cymbidium coccineum; H. E. F. 38.) O. densum (dense). fl. white, purplish, in very dense, aggregated, axillary racemes; sepals linear-lanceolate, acuminate, carinate; petals rather smaller; lip oblong, undivided, channelled and recurved at apex. l. oblong-lanceolate, obtuse, emarginate. Pseudo-bulbs oblong, compressed, axillary, one-leaved. Mexico, 1836. (B. R. 1804, and Ref. B. 105, under name of Maxillaria densa.) O. strumatum (tumoured). fl. white, small, solitary; the upper sepal acute. l. linear-ligulate. Pseudo-bulbs densely aggregated, one-leaved. Costa Rica, 1875. (R. X. O. iii. 207.)