But even if admitted to be a pehria, to what species must it be 

 referred? The answer to this question opens a rather extensive 

 field of inquiry, and implicates a large number of reputed spe- 

 cies, including C. labiata, C. Mossia>, C. pallida, C. Warszeiciczii, 

 C. Triancei, and C. Wageneri, which are found distributed over 

 a vast range of territory extending from the heart of Mexico to 

 the capital of Brazil. The first on the list, C. labiata, was found 

 some thirty or forty years ago — where alas ! it is not to be 

 found now — on the well-known Organ Mountains in the vici- 

 nity of Rio Janeiro. The next, C. Mossus, was found on the 

 Spanish main, and as it always bloomed in the spring or sum- 

 mer, and had never more than two or three flowers on a scape, 

 it was long considered distinct from C. labiata, which had inva- 

 riably bloomed in November, and produced double the number 

 of flowers. But last June I received luxuriant specimens of 

 what was undoubtedly C. labiata from the garden of the Bishop 

 of Winchester, while plants have been imported of C. MossicB 

 producing four to six flowers on a scape, and thus the most 

 marked distinctions between the two supposed species have 

 entirely disappeared. Of C. pallida a solitary plant was found 

 by Hartweg on his way to Oaxaca ; this has recently flowered 

 at Knypersley, and proves to be, as Reichenbach suspected, 

 identical with the C. Warszeiciczii delicata of Mr. Warner, which 

 was found by the traveller whose name it bears in the interior 

 of New Granada. This again is indistinguishable, except in 

 colour, from C. Wageneri of the same country, and which has 

 very naturally been regarded as nothing but a white variety of 

 C. Moma. Finally Mr. Weir, the zealous collector of the Horti- 

 cultural Society, mentions in one of his letters from Bogota, that 

 he met with innumerable varieties— white, lilac, and rose — of a 

 beautiful Cattleya that he gathered in that neighbourhood, and 

 the dried specimens of which exactly resemble the flowers of 

 C labiata, C. Trianm, and C. Warszeiciczii. From a collation 

 of the facts before us, there would seem to be at least a high 

 probability that all the six so-called species above referred to 

 are in reality varieties of a single form that spreads itself— like 

 -bpidendrum ciliare and B. cochleatum— over the whole Orchid- 

 growmg region of tropical America. Whether or no C. quadri- 

 color itself will have to be added to the list of cancelled species, 

 is a question that time only can determine. Meanwhile the 

 nybridizer plies his trade, and will speedilv render " worse con- 

 founded" that "confusion" which is sufficiently perplexing, 

 even as it comes to us from the hand of nature.—/. B. 



Descr. Pseudobulbous stems from six inches to a foot long, 

 perfectly upright, narrower and more compressed than in other 

 allied species. Leaves, one on each stem, narrow, strap-shaped, 



