"Petal
of orchid, one of 99 orchids, if you please, mailed to me yesterday, Special
Delivery, c’est bien le cas de le dire, from Villa Armina, Alpes
Maritimes. Have laid aside ten for Aqua to be taken to her at her Home.
Ex en
Carolyn Kunin has
made a link between Armenia and Villa Armina ( in Ada), besides
several other references which she might be interested to bring up again
for us.
My point is: if the "Butterfly Orchis" is a variant of the"Ada"
orchid ( an Oncidium ) and if ( there are sooo many "if" here!) we can
confirm the reference to Ada, Artemisia II and Mausolos in Anatolia to the
choice for the orchid´s name, then there would be little doubt that
VN was stressing his knowledge about Queen "Ada" in Halicarnassus. That´s
how I see at the moment the meaning of "Armenia" in VN´s
text. .
Unfortunately I could not discover if the Butterfly Orchis could be a
variant of the Ada orchid.
I found out that "For many years this species was listed as Oncidium
papilio and some of you still may find some a specimen with a tag that lists
it as an Oncidium. It was finally officially placed into the
Psychopsis genus which was originally recommended in 1838 by Rafinesque.
There are five species currently found in this genus; kramerianum, papilio,
sanderae, versteegiana, and limminghei. (the valid inclusion of limminghei is
still debated). The change in this genus has been slow, so many of these are
still referenced under Oncidium. Another related ( and often confused
genus) is Psycopsiella. Maybe some day everyone will agree where these
butterflies belong"
The observarion above came from the internet and was
written by Linda Fortner when writing
about " A Special Butterfly" ( Aug. 2000),
... "The species are naturally wide spread from Trinidad to Colombia, Costa
Rica, Ecuador and Panama. The foliage of these species is very different from other
orchids. The leaves look like donkey ears. They are very stiff,
rough in texture, and are dull red or grayish green in color. The inflorescence can reach heights up to 150 cm tall, are
jointed and flat. These spikes can remain active for many years producing one
flower at a time in succession, a dream of every one that grows orchids.
The spectacular flower is the reason it is called
"The Butterfly Orchid." It looks like a butterfly with a large brightly colored
body, very long antennas, and wings barred with yellow and rust brown.
I hope our list offers various orchid experts and historians that could confirm, deny or enrich this link.
Jansy