supj}lcme?itari/ to Ena/c. of Plants and HorL Brit. 219 



" * The unimportance of the peculiarity which exists in the 

 labellum (namely, its flattened or fringed and crested state) is 

 manifested in a singular manner by a curions monster of this 

 plant, which we have observed on an individual in the Horticul- 

 tural Society's Garden. Among flowers of the ordinary structure, 

 two or three others were observed, in which the labellum was 

 precisely of the same nature as tliat of Catasetum tridentatum ; 

 that is to say, destitute of the crested appendage, and perfectly 

 galeate and naked.' 



" This, I repeat, appeared to me so extraordinary a state- 

 ment, especially as, after seven years, it had never been corro- 

 borated by any other case of the same kind, that I concluded I 

 must have made some mistake ; and I accordingly formed the 

 genus Myanthus out of a species nearly allied to the very Ca- 

 tasetum cristatum which, in 1826, I had seen sporting back to 

 C. tridentatum. 



" Not content with this, I added the genus Monachanthus, 

 distinguishing it from Catasetum by the want of cirrhi on its 

 column, and by its peiianth being turned back ; and, when the 

 original species, M. viridis, was sent me from Wentworth, pre- 

 viously to publication in the Botanical Register, 1 752., I felt no 

 doubt of its being an entirely distinct plant. Even when Lord 

 Fitzwilliam assured me that it was beyond all doubt an accidental 

 sport of Catasetum tridentatum, I still adhered to my idea that 

 an imported plant of Monachanthus viridis had been accidentally 

 taken for the latter common species. Nor do I think that, as a 

 botanist, I was to be blamed for these errors ; the genera being 

 founded upon characters that were apparently important, and 

 which, most assuredly, no one could, a priori, have suspected 

 could pass into each other in the manner that has now been seen. 

 If, however, it should be thought that I ought to have been 

 aware of such metamorphoses, I at least have lost no time in 

 acknowledging the mistakes, and putting others on their guard 

 against them for the future. 



" M. Schomburgh has lately sent to the Linnsean Society, 

 from Demerara, a specimen of another Monachanthus sporting 

 to a ciested Myanthus ; of which, I presume, some account 

 will in due time be published. And I am acquainted with the 

 following example of this tendency in a very different genus. 



" In 1836, Mr. Wilmore of Oldfield,' near Birmingham, 

 sent me a specimen of Cycnoches, which had broad petals, a 

 short column hooded and dilated at the apex, and a broad 

 roundish lip gibbous at the base, and with its stalk much shorter 

 than the column. It was, however, destitute of scent ; while 

 Cycnoches Loddigcsu has, as is well known, a delicious odour 

 of vanilla. I had no doubt of its being a distinct species, and 

 called it C. cucullata. But, in the autumn of 1836, in the 



