CYCNOCHES. 145 
The lip is white, with a black callosity on the short 
claw which connects it with the column. The strange 
behaviour of this plant when it was first introduced caused 
no little surprise amongst botanists, and led to a careful 
investigation of the whole genus by Dr. Lindley. He wrote 
of C. ventricosum: ‘‘Such cases shake to the foundation 
all our ideas of the stability of genera and species, and 
prepare the mind for more startling discoveries than could 
have been otherwise anticipated.” At one time it produces 
large green flowers, in a short spike, with broad flat sepals 
and petals, and a white convex lip, and at another bears 
small blackish flowers in a very long drooping spike, the 
narrow sepals and petals folded back, the labellum disk- 
like, with a horn in the middle and projecting finger-like 
divisions round the edge. On one occasion these two dis- 
tinct kinds of flowers were produced on the same spike. 
Native of Guatemala; introduced in 1842. 
Botanical Register, 1843, t. 22. 
C. Warscewicziii—This plant also sometimes produces 
on one raceme flowers of quite a different appearance to 
those produced on another. It is supposed to be a sexual 
form of C. ventricosum, notwithstanding that both have 
been described, and are now cultivated, as distinct species. 
The larger, or female, flowers occur three or four together 
on a short raceme, and have broad sepals and petals, 
and a broad, pale green, undivided lip. The smaller, or 
male, flowers are produced on a long, pendent raceme 
of twelve to eighteen; they are wholly pale green 
except the lip, which is yellow, and much divided. In 
these flowers the column is long and curved, whilst in 
the larger form it is short and club-shaped. A native of 
Guatemala ; introduced in 1879. 
te eet —_—_—__<_— 
