MASDEVALLIA CHESTERTONII Rchb. f. 
Maspevaniia Cuxstertonit Rehb. f. Gard. Chron. 1883, pt. I, p. 532; Orchidophile (Godefroy) 
vol. I. (1883), p. 623 ; Bot. Mag. 6977. 
Leaf 5 or 6 inches long, 1 or 14 inch wide, oblong, carinate, acutely tridenticulate, bright green, 
narrowing into a slender, grooved, pale green petiole, with wide membranous sheaths at the base. 
Peduncle 3 or 4 inches long, horizontal, or descending from the base of the petiole, terete, with 
numerous sheathing bracts, dull green sometimes marked with purple ; producing two or three flowers, 
each flower falling off before the expansion of the next; flowering bract about 4 inch long, 3-nerved, 
apiculate, carinate, light green. 
Ovary } inch long, terete, with six grooves, curved, dull green or purple. 
Sepals: dorsal sepal united to the lateral sepals for } inch, oblong-ovate for about # inch, 7-nerved, 
erect, margins reflexed ; lateral sepals cohering for nearly 3 inch, roundly ovate, 7-nerved; all pale green, 
spotted with dark purple, and with numerous small purple papilla, and terminating in slender flattened 
tails about ? inch long, dark purple or greenish. 
Petals nearly 4 inch long, yellow with dark brown spots, linear at the base, diverging at the apex 
into two wings, the outer rounded, the inner triangular, having between them an angled wart-shaped. 
process, dark brown and shining. 
Lip about 1 inch wide, with a long claw, concave in the centre, with a fleshy lobe on each side, united 
by a hinge to the foot of the column, anterior portion reniform, with a prominent reddish central keel and 
numerous radiating ones, which bifurcate near the margin, flesh-pink, shaded with deep rust-red. 
Column ¥ inch long, much curved, narrowly winged, white or very pale green spotted with crimson, 
apex minutely denticulate. 
I AM informed by Consul Lehmann that Masdevallia Chestertonii was discovered in 
1879, on the western slopes of the Farrallones de Cali, in the State of Cauca, by 
Chesterton, who was sent out to collect Orchids by Messrs. Sander, of St. Albans. A 
later date and a different locality are usually assigned to it. The colour of the flowers 
varies in different specimens, some being green with crimson-purple spots, and others 
yellowish with blackish-purple spots. The shell-like lip, resembling in shape that of 
iM. bella, is sometimes a delicate pink, sometimes pale pinkish-yellow, more or less 
shaded and veined with deep red. The petals differ remarkably from those of WZ. bella, 
its nearest ally, having at their apex a thick, shining, dark-brown knob, instead of the 
spreading yellow wings so characteristic of that species. 
