Scelochilus
(from skelos, a leg, and cheilos, a lip; in reference to the shape of the divided labellum). ORD. Orchideae. A small genus (three or four species) of stove, epiphytal Orchids, natives of the Andes of South America. Flowers mediocre, few in a raceme, pedicellate; sepals erect, connivent, the posterior one concave, the lateral ones connate, produced in a sac or spur; petals rather broader than the posterior sepal; lip continuous with the base of the column, long-clawed, erect; column erect, semi-terete; pollen masses two, sub-globose; bracts narrow; scapes at the base of the pseudo-bulbs, erect, simple or slightly branched. Leaf coriaceous, not plicate. Stem at length more or less thickened into a narrow pseudo-bulb. Only one species has been introduced. For culture, see Burlingtonia.
S. Ottonis (Otto's). fl. yellow, purple-striped within, short-stalked, compressed; spike a little branched, slightly longer than the leaf, round, thread-like, smooth, covered by sessile, dry, lanceolate, acuminate bracts. May. l. oblong, coriaceous, slightly undulated, conduplicate, and very acute at apex, recurved. Caraccas, 1841. (L. & P. F. G. iii. p. 87.)