THE 



JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 



©rtgtnal ^xtitlt^. 



ON A MONANDROUS CYPBIPKDIUM. 



By S. Le M. Moore. 



(Tab. 200, a.) 



During the past two seasons some of the flowers, as weU lateral 

 as terminal, on Kew-grown specimens of Cyjyrijjedium Sedeni, 

 Rchb. f. (a hybrid between C. longifolium, Warsc., and C. Schlimii, 

 Rchb. f.*) have lapsed into the curious and highly instructive 

 andi'oecial modification which I purpose to describe and make a 

 few comments upon. I may state that flowers showing this mal- 

 formation are dei)osited in spirit in the Kew Herbarium, so that 

 even if it should not occur elsewhere there will be material for 

 future investigation. 



Reference to Fig. 1 will show that the monstrous flowers have 

 only four instead of six perianthial organs ; of these the conjoined 

 lateral sepals (ss) are almost normal, and the labellum (/) quite so. 

 O^Dposite the latter, and on the other side of the column, is an 

 organ in the position of the upper sepal, but that it is a petal and 

 not a sepal is shown by its standing on the inner side of the sepals, 

 and by its having the same hue and basal-coloured hairs of a petal. 

 Outside this transijosed x^etal there is no sign of the missing sepal, 

 neither is there a trace of the second petal, t But the most 

 remarkable deviation is to be found in the column. On looking to 

 the centre of the flower the reader will be struck by the absence 

 of the ' shield,' the transformed posticous, in monandrous Orchids 

 antheriferous, stamen. This strange column is shown at Fig. 3 



* ' See Gard. Chron.' 1873, p. 1431. 



+ The following notes are selected from a number made with the mon- 

 strous flower before me:— Labellum normal. Breadth of conjoined Interal sepals, 

 an inch and one-fourth (of unmodified flowers an inch and one-twelfth), and 

 their free edges are not reflexed, so that they more closely invest the labellum 

 than is usually the case. Petal an inch and five-sixths limj,' by two-thn-ds of an 

 inch broad at its widest part; in the ordinal y state it hns the same length, but 

 is a trifle narrower; the upper sepal is an inch and onc-tbird br..ad at widest 

 part, and it has no coloured hairs at its base. The figure in the ' Horal 

 Magazine' (1876 t. 200) shows larger and brighter flowers thun any I have 

 seen at Kew. 



[January, 1879.] » 



