P late XII.
CYRTOPODIUM PUNCTATUM.
Cyrtopodium punctatum. Lindl. Genera et Species Orchid, p. 188. Botanical
Magazine, t. 3507.
Epidendrum punctatum. Linn. Sp. PI. 1349. Willd. Sp. Pl. 4. 116.
Helleborine ramosissima, cauliculis et floribus maculosis. Plum. Plant. American,
t. 187.
Although this plant has been already figured twice before, it deserves a place in this collection,
for the representations above quoted in neither case give a correct likeness of it; that in the
Botanical Magazine seems to have been taken from a bleached specimen. The plant from which
the annexed drawing was prepared was sent me from Liverpool by Richard Harrison, Esq. and
about the same time I received it from Mr. Henry Shepherd who had flowered it in the Botanical
Garden,' Liverpool.
It is far more striking than the common C. Andersonii, on account of the bright, deep crimson
stains with which the bracts and flowers, as well as the flower-sterns, are richly variegated ; but in
foliage and general habit is so like it as to be hardly distinguishable when not in blossom.
The species is extensively distributed through the tropical parts ©f America. I have wild
specimens gathered in St. Domingo by Mr. Charles Mackenzie, and others' found by Deppe and
Schiede in Mexico, on basaltic rocks at Malpayo de Naulinga, in the tierra templada, flowering in
April. Mr. Gardner found it in Brazil, whence Mr. Harrison’s plant was received, and it exists in
Dr. von Martius’s Brazilian herbarium, under the name of Oncidium palmophilum, palmis aliisque
arboribus parasiticum, sylvce Catingas, provincice JBahiensis ad Rio de Contas ; no. 1965.
In stem and leaves this is extremely like Cyrtopodium Andersonii. The scape is from
two to three feet high, round, branched above the middle, and finely dotted with dull purple;
with a few membranous green scales, which are erect and sheathing near the base, undulated,
oblong-lanceolate, reflexed, acuminate, pale yellowish green, richly spotted and banded with crimson
towards and among the flowers. The flowers are regularly alternate upon the simple branches
of a racemose panicle, about an inch apart,- and nearly two inches in diameter. The sepals and
petals are spreading and a little reflexed ; the former are oblong-lanceolate, undulated, acuminate,
or only acute, greenish yellow, and blotched with crimson; the latter are bright yellow, of nearly
the same size and form, but less undulated and rather broader, with a few crimson spots near the
base. The lip is about half an inch long, more fleshy than the other parts, shortly unguiculate,
with a bright, deep, yellow ground colour, deeply three-lobed; the two lateral lobes obovate,
rounded, rather wavy, and deep crimson; the middle lobe broader than long, emarginate, dull
crimson and closely tuberculated at the margin ; the disk is a little spotted and banded with yellow,
and is covered with pale yellow granulations, which are collected into a circle in the centre, and
are also a little dispersed over the unguis. The column is green.