ORCHID MYSTERIES. 



PERHAPS in no members of the vegetable kingdom is the 

 remarkable phenomenon of heteromorphism, or the production of 

 diversely formed flowers upon the same plant, more distinctly 

 exhibited than in the two peculiar and interesting genera of 

 Orchids, Catasetum and Cycnoches. Observers have from time 

 to time recorded the appearance in some species (chiefly 

 Catasetums) of certain strange departures from the typical 

 structure of the floral organs accompanied by the normal flowers 

 of the species and several intermediate forms, all of which were 

 in some instances borne upon the same inflorescence. The first 

 who recorded one of these extraordinary occurrences was Sir R. 

 Schomburgk, who contributed to the Linnean Society a paper 

 describing an orchid he had found in Demerara, which bore on 

 one spike flowers of what had been supposed to be three distinct 

 genera, viz., Catasetum, Monachanthus, and Myanthus. He 

 farther observed that although the Catasetum produced seeds 

 freely, the Monachanthus was uniformly sterile. This account 

 was published in the Linnean Society's Transactions (vol. xvii.) 

 and attracted the attention of botanists and naturalists generally, 

 but from its singularity was received by many somewhat in- 

 credulously. However, in November, 1836, a plant of Myanthus 

 cristatus in the garden of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, 

 also produced flowers of Monachanthus and Catasetum, similar to 

 the plant described by Sir R. Schomburgk. This specimen was 

 figured in the Botanical Register (vol. xxiii.) and proved beyond 

 all doubt the correctness of what had been previously written 

 concerning the variability of the flowers. Dr. Lindley, in com- 

 menting upon the plant, mentions how he first assigned these 

 forms to three genera, distinguishing Myanthus from Catasetum 

 by the deeply fringed or crested labellum, and Monachanthus 

 from both the others by the absence of cirrhi or feelers from the 

 column, and he further remarks in extenuation of this decision, 

 " Nor do I think that as a botanist I could be blamed for these 

 errors, the genera being founded upon characters which no one 

 could, a priori, have suspected could pass into each other in the 

 manner that has now been seen." Many other similar specimens 

 have since been noted, and the two pseudo-genera Monachanthus 

 and Myanthus are now merged in Catasetum. 



The other heteromorphic genus, Cycnoches, is similar in habit 



