436 ORCHIDS. 
1816, and it is recorded as having flowered for the first 
time in 1827. 
Botanical Magazine, t. 2297. 
R. Lowiii—A showy and very remarkable species, of 
which but comparatively few plants are at present in culti- 
vation. It is of a tall, semi-climbing habit, with a stem 
Iin. in diameter, bearing dark green, strap-shaped, leathery 
leaves, 2ft. to 3ft. long. The drooping flower-spikes are 
6ft. to 12ft. in length, and slightly hairy, each bearing from 
thirty to fifty flowers; a plant under cultivation is recorded 
as having carried twenty-six spikes at one time. An extra- 
ordinary characteristic of this species is that of invariably 
producing, at the base of every spike, a pair of flowers 
which differ in shape, colour, and marking, from all the 
others. Under Catasetum a somewhat similar occurrence 
was alluded to; but in that genus the flowers on the same 
plant differ in being male and female, whereas in Renan- 
thera Lowii there does not appear to be any sexual differ- 
ence. The basal pair of flowers are tawny-yellow, dotted 
with crimson; the sepals and petals being lance-shaped 
and bluntish. All the other flowers are larger, and have 
lance-shaped, wavy, more acute sepals and petals; they 
are pale yellowish green, irregularly blotched with a rich 
reddish brown. The lip is about half the length of the 
sepals and petals, the whole flower being 3in. in diameter. 
A native of Borneo, where it is stated by Mr. Wallace to — 
grow on the lower branches of trees, its flower-spikes 
nearly touching the ground. Syns. Avrachnanthe Lowi, 
Vanda Lowtt. 
Plate (for which we are indebted to the Editor of the 
““Garden’’); Botanical Magazine, t. 54.75. 
tO 0 Ot 0 
