216 ORCHIDACEM 



GRAMMATOPHYLLUM Bl. 



Or. MEASURESIANUM Weathers Gard.& For. 2: 524(1889); 

 Journ. Hort. 23 : 342, f . 69 (1891) ; Stein Orchideenb. 267 ; Wil- 

 liams Orch. Grow. Man. ed. 7, 415 ; Sander Orch. Guide 91. — 

 G. Fenzlianum var. Measuresianum Veitch Man. Orch. PL pt. 9, 

 32, fig. (1893), excl. syn. Seegerianum. 



" Characterized by the masses of oblong elliptic, slightly com- 

 pressed pseudobulbs, clothed with silvery membranous sheaths, 

 and varying in length from eight to sixteen inches, more or less 

 furrowed when young, and deeply wrinkled when old. Each pseu- 

 dobulb bears at its summit from four to six deep green, persistent, 

 broadly lanceolate, acute leaves, eighteen inches or two feet long. In 

 a wild state from sixty to seventy flowers, each about four inches 

 across, are borne in April on stout, erect scapes, which spring from 

 the base of the pseudobulb and are from five to seven feet tall. 

 The narrower petals vary in color from cream to greenish yellow, 

 and are handsomely blotched with dark brown or blackish purple, 

 the incurved tip of each sepal invariably having a large blotch of 

 the same color. The small lip is pale creamy yellow, with a purple 

 stain outside at the base. The bluntly ovate incurved side lobes are 

 each transversed by seven sepia-brown parallel lines, and the disc, 

 which is covered with fine white hair, has two parallel elevated 

 keels or ridges which terminate in a small, hairy protuberance in 

 the center of the very small middle lobe, which is oblong in shape, 

 creamy white and lined with purple-brown, while the slender, arch- 

 ing column is white, tipped behind and streaked in front with 

 purple. On each side of the yellow pollen masses, which show 

 through the anther case, is a small purple spot, thus giving the 

 column the appearance of some insect peeping out from between 

 the incurved side lobes of the lip. 



" It is a peculiar fact, and one worthy of notice, that the first 

 five or six flowers at the base of the peduncle are always abnormal, 

 that is, abnormal in differing from the other flowers, but natural 



