64 ORCHIDS FOR EVERYONE 



late Spring and Summer, and are generally to be seen in considerable 

 numbers at the great annual Temple Show in London. A con- 

 spicuous feature of the flower is the large, full, helmet-shaped lip, 

 of a dull purple-brown colour. The green dorsal sepal has a white 

 margin, and is regularly and heavily veined with dark green that 

 shades to purple towards the apex. The petals are whitish, or 

 pale purple, veined with green, and have raised black spots along 

 the margin. They are curiously deflexed and reach to about the 

 end of the lip. C. Curtisii has handsome leaves in which two 

 shades of green are prettily intermixed. The species should be 

 grown in a stove temperature, and it is then easily managed. 

 Some of the Prudhoe miners grow it very well. 



C. Fairrieanum is a lowly species, rarely exceeding eight 

 inches high even when in bloom. The flowers are small, about 

 three inches across from the tip of the dorsal sepal to the end of 

 the lip, but the beautiful rose-purple veinings on the white 

 ground of the upper sepal make it very attractive, and the petals, 

 deflexed and then upturned at the tip, moustache fashion, give the 

 flower an interesting appearance. These are pale green with 

 purple veins and have black hairs along the margin. The lip is 

 brownish green with purple veins. For many years C. Fairrieanum 

 became rarer and rarer in cultivation and its rarity, the absence of 

 importations or knowledge of its habitat, together with the fact 

 that the hybrids derived from it were of great value, all lent a 

 wonderful interest to the species. At last, just when hybridists 

 seemed to have given up all hope of ever receiving imported plants, 

 and when the few living cultivated plants were beyond price, the 

 species was rediscovered, importations followed each other, and now 

 C. Fairrieanum is found in almost every collection and in some 

 quantity. In 1857 flowers of C. Fairrieanum were sent to Kew 

 from a garden in Somersetshire, and also from Mr Parker's 



