400 okchid-gkower's manual. 



M. tovarensis, Rchb. f. — This is a very distinct species, 

 easy of culture, and much sought after on account of its pro- 

 ducing a profusion of white flowers, which are invaluable as 

 cut flowers for many decorative purposes. The plant, more- 

 over, lasts a long time in bloom, and thus makes up, with its 

 modest beauty, for any deficiency that might be suggested 

 through comparing it with larger-flowered and more attrac- 

 tively coloured sorts. It forms a tuft of oblong-spathulate 

 bidentate leaves a span long, and has two-edged scapes of about 

 the same height, bearing flowers of the purest white, in which 

 the sepals coalesce into a short tube, the dorsal one gradually 

 tapered into an awn-like tail nearly two inches long, and 

 the lateral ones are longer, semiovate, an inch long, suddenly 

 narrowed into a tail of about equal length, the tails all 

 greenish white. The flowers are sweet-scented, and generally 

 grow in pairs. This plant was at one time extremely rare, 

 but it has been imported in such quantity that it can now 

 be purchased at a very moderate cost. It flowers during the 

 winter months. — Colombia. 



YlG.—Bot Mag., t. 5505 ; Batem. 2nd Cent. Orch. PI., 1. 120 ; lllust. Hort., 

 3 ser., t. 363 ; Card. Chron., 1865, 914, with fig. ; Id., xvi. 409, fig. 79 B ; 

 Puydt, Les Orch., t. 24 ; Journ. of Sort., 3 ser., x. 153, fig. 27 (specimen 

 plant) ; Florist and Pomol., 1873, 169, with tab. 



Syn. — M. Candida. 



M. triangularis, Lindley. — A curious and interesting little 

 species. The leaves are oval-lanceolate acute, four inches 

 long, the scape filiform, the flowers spreading, with the sepals 

 equal triangular, scarcely two inches long, ochre yellow dotted 

 with purple, the long slender tails deep red. It flowers in 

 December. — Colombia. 



M. Trocllilus. — See Masdevallia Ephippium. 



M. VeitcMana, JRchb. f. — A most beautiful species, with 

 flowers of resplendent colour. The leaves are densely tufted, 

 six or eight inches long, linear-oblong, leathery, of a dark 

 shining green ; the scape bears a solitary flower about six 

 inches across in its longest diameter, the sepals connate into 

 a tube at the base, ovate, the lateral ones oblique, and each 

 lengthened out into a tail at the points ; they are of a bright 

 orange- scarlet, exceeding rich from the inner surface being 

 studded with minute papillae of a brilliant cadmium-yellow, 

 and also beautifully shaded with purple ; the eye or mouth 

 of the tube is bright yellow, and contains the small and 



