shows that the character is as constant as it is peculiar. 
There are other features of an anomaious nature which 
tend to render the affinity of our plant doubtful. While 
it is, as Mr. Rolfe points out, most comparable with the 
Colombian P. inflata, Rolfe, a species certainly referable 
to the group Macrophyllac-Fasciculatae as defined by the 
late Professor Lindley, the plant figured produces a soli- 
tary flower from a large spathe like that in the natural 
section Spathaceae. Yet it differs essentially from the 
true members of that section, in all of which the flowers 
are disposed in many-flowered racemes. The history of 
P. punctulata is simple, so far as it goes. The species 
flowered for the first time in cultivation in December, 
1888, with Messrs James Veitch and Sons, Chelsea, and 
was then submitted to Kew for identification with the 
information that it had been imported, as a solitary 
plant, from New Granada, three years before. Shortly 
thereafter, the plant passed into the collection of 
Mr. R. I. Measures of Camberwell, with whom it flowered 
in December, 1802. No other plant of the species is 
‘known to have been imported, and no wild specimen has 
been met with in herbarium collections, so that the 
precise habitat of P. punctulata in Colombia is still 
uncertain. In, February, 1908, a small portion of the 
original plant, secured by division, was presented to the 
Kew Collection. This plant has thriven well in a cool 
house under the conditions suitable for species of 
Masdevallia, and came into flower in November, 1918, 
when our figure was made. 
Description.—Herb, epiphytic, 5-6 in. high. Stems nearly cylindric, rather 
slender, 2-3 in. long, clothed halfway up with narrow tubular sheaths, 1-foliate. 
Leaves shortly petioled, ovate-elliptic, rather acute, coriaceous, copiously mealy- 
glaucous, 2}-3} in. long, $-1 in. wide, recurved near the base ; petiole } in long, 
twisted at the base. Spathe axillary, conduplicate, keeled, lanceolate-oblong, 
glaucous, 1-1} in. long, } in. wide. Peduncele 2-23 in. long, 1-flowered. 
Flowers medium-sized, yellow, punctulate with purple spots. Sepals more or 
less connivent; posterior sepal lanceolate, rather acute, 1 in. long, over 4 in. 
in. wide ; lateral pair connate in an obovate-elliptic somewhat acute, concave 
limb 1 in. long, 2 in. wide. Petals wide lanceolate, acute, over 1 in. long, 
3 in. wide. Lip somewhat 3-lobed, 2 in. long, dark purple; lateral lobes 
erect, oblong, blunt, somewhat concave, nearly 4 in. long; disk harsh 
papillose. Colwmn clavate, } in. long; wings narrow, entire. Pollinia 2, 
pyriform. 
Tap, 8839,—Fig. 1, flower, the sepals removed; 2, petal; 8, column; . 
4, pollinia, seen from in front and from behind :—all enlarged. 
