MASDEVALLIA RACEMOSA. 
air of their native habitat and the hot steaming atmosphere of the lowlands near the 
coast or the navigable rivers. Delays in the tropical heat of various ports have also to 
be encountered—four days at Colon, two days at J: amaica, ete.—before the twelve days 
voyage across the Atlantic is even begun. Pathetic accounts are given by collectors 
of the injury sustained by their treasures fermenting rapidly in the intense heat of the 
ship’s hold, daily examination revealing the damage done, and necessitating the throwing 
overboard of rare plants which would have realised a fortune if brought alive to Europe. 
The first drawing of MZ. racemosa was one by Consul Lehmann, published in the 
Gardeners’ Chronicle in 1884. He found his specimens growing on the ground, rarely on 
trees, in moderately thick woods on the western slopes of the Paramo de Moras, de las 
Delicias, and del Guanaca, at an elevation of 2,900 to 3,800 métres (about 9,416—12,350 
feet). 
The mistaken idea that each flower-stem of JZ. racemosa produces numerous flowers 
expanded at the same time, seems to have originated in the fact that some dried speci- 
mens with ten to fourteen flowers carefully arranged upon the dead stalks were exhibited 
at the first sale of living plants, in 1883. The number of flowers developed at the same 
time never exceeds four and rarely exceeds two; among many specimens, both dried and 
living, I have never seen a stem with more than two open flowers. In Consul Lehmann’s 
descriptions of wild specimens collected by him, he mentions that the flowers appear in 
succession, sometimes as many as eighteen upon one stem. 
The structure of MZ. racemosa, and the curious growth of the leaves at intervals along 
the creeping rhizomes, distinguish it so clearly from all other known species that it 
cannot be classed in any of the sections originated by Professor Reichenbach. 
