MASDEVALLIA AMABILIS Rchb. f. 
Masprvaniia Amapiuis Rehb. f. Bonplandia IT. (1854), p. 116 ; Walp. Ann. VI. (1861), p. 193 ; Belg. 
Hort. 1873, p. 354; Tllustr. Hort. vol. xxi. (1874), t. 196 (var. lineata); Gard. Chron. 1881, 
pt. IL., p. 236. 
Leaf 5 to 7 inches long, 4 to 1 inch wide, oblong-lanceolate, tridenticulate, carinate, dark green, 
narrowing into a slender grooved petiole, sheathed at the base. 
Peduncle 10 or 12 inches long, terete, slender, ascending, 1-flowered, pale green tinged with pink, 
With three or four sheathing bracts, the flowering bract about § inch long, 5-nerved, apiculate, pale green 
or brownish. 
Ovary about 4 inch long, curved, with three broad and three narrow rounded angles, pale green tinged 
with rose-pink. 
Sepals: dorsal sepal united to the lateral sepals for nearly one inch, forming a deep narrow tube, 
slightly curved, yellow shaded and nerved with rose-crimson ; free portion of the dorsal sepa] about 3 inch 
in length, and the same in width, ovate, 3-nerved, orange shaded with crimson, tapering into a very 
slender tail about 14 inch long, orange-red and crimson ; lateral sepals cohering for about 14 inch, 3 inch 
wide, ovate-triangular, with 3 crimson nerves, brilliant red shaded with rosy crimson, velvety with lustrous 
microscopic hairs, tails 4 inch long, very slender, dark crimson. 
Petals } inch Jong, linear-oblong. curved, apiculate, with a prominent keel on the inner surface parallel 
to the anterior margin, terminating in a curved point, beneath which is a mass of colourless viscid matter ; 
yale orange-vellow. apex crimson. 
] ge-) 
Lip 4 inch long, pandurate, with two longitudinal keels, margin reflexed, apex recurved, pale orange- 
yellow at the base, then rose-crimson, apex and keels dark crimson. 
Column } inch Jong, apex minutely denticulate, very pale yellow, marked at the back and narrowly 
winged with crimson. 
) eee ae AMABILIS was discovered by Warscewicz in the Peruvian Andes 
about the year 1850, and was described by Professor Reichenbach in 1854 from 
dried specimens. It was not known in cultivation until 1872, when Roezl brought living 
plants from the same region, and these flowered first in 1875, at Brussels, in the collec- 
tion of Mons. Linden. The flowers, which are faintly sweet-scented, vary much in colour, 
some being brilliant scarlet veined and shaded with crimson, and others uniform glowing 
amethyst-crimson with the veins scarcely visible. A less beautiful variety is yellowish, 
shaded and strongly veined with crimson or red, and it is this form which is*figured in 
L'llustration Horticole for 1874 as MZ. amabilis var. lineata, sometimes also sold as 
M. anabilia var. striata. 
Explanation of Plate, drawn from a plant at Newbattle Abbey : . 
Fig. 1, lip, column, and petal, in natural position ;—la, section of ovary ;—2, petal, inner side ;—3, 
lip ;—4, column ;—4a, apex of column ; all enlarged ;—5, apex and section of leaf ; natural size. 
