MASDEVALLIA TRINEMA Rchb. f. 
Maspevatria rrinrma Rehb. f. Flora (Singer) 1886, p. 558. 
M. Lowti, Rolfe in Gard. Chron. 1890, pt. I, p. 416; pt. IL, p. 269, fig. 44. 
Leaf 6 or 7 inches long, oblong-lanceolate, carinate, acutely tridenticulate, margins waved, narrowing 
below in a slender petiole, sheathed at the base, bluish-green. 
I ? ’ to) 
Pedunele 5 or 6 inches long, terete, slender, lateral or descending from the base of the petiole 
(rarely erect), 2 or 3-flowered, the flowers expanding in succession, with numerous sheathing bracts, pale 
green ; flowering bracts about 5 inch long, oblong-ovate, apiculate, sheathing below, pale green. 
Ovary 4 inch long, with six rounded angles, purplish-ereen. 
Sepals cohering for searcely 3 inch, elongated triangular, with numerous nerves, cream-white tinged 
with yellow, and covered with mauve-purple spots and minute papilla, each sepal tapering into a slender 
flattened tail about 15 inch long, cream-white. 
Petals about 4 inch long, oblong, the apex cleft into two lobes, with numerous minute dark purple 
papillze between the lobes, pale yellow, with a central streak and blotch of dark purple. 
Lip longer than the petals, grooved at the base and united to the foot of the column by a flexible 
hinge, fleshy, with prominent central keels and minute radiating lateral ones, flattened, scarcely hollow, 
mauve-purple, with darker rays and a few spots. 
Column a little longer than the petals, terete, narrowly winged, apex denticulate, pale yellow. 
[2 is on the authority of Consul Lehmann—who has had the advantage of examining 
Professor Reichenbach’s dried specimens—that I identify MZ. trinema Rehb. f. with 
M. Lowii of Rolfe. The name of the original discoverer of this species is unknown, 
and no indication of its habitat, beyond the words “Nov. Gran.,” is given in 
Reichenbach’s description, written in 1886. 
The plant is still very rare, the three or four specimens in cultivation having all 
been divided from one small piece imported from Cauca among a number of Orchids, 
by Messrs. Hugh Low & Co., in 1889. Mr. Sidney Courtauld was the purchaser of the 
new plant, and it first flowered in his collection in 1890. In a wild state the slender 
flower-stalks are sometimes upright, but more usually they are lateral, or descending in 
graceful curves through the moss which covers the roots of the plant. 
Consul Lehmann has found this species in the following locality : 
Masdevallia trinema occupies a very small range of the western mountains in the north of the 
Cauca and of Western Antioquia, in Columbia. I first found it in 1883 on the Cordillera de Belaleazar, 
between the towns of Cartago and Supia in the Cauca, and afterwards at Frontino and El Yarumal in the 
west and north-west of Antioquia. It grows on trees in thick damp woods at an elevation of 1,500 to 
1,900 metres (4,875 to 6,175 feet). It is rave in all these localities, and as a rule, it selects only those 
trees which border the banks of mountain streams and rivulets. At Frontino it always grows mixed with 
plants of MZ. Peristeria, M. nidifica, and M. Carderi. The climate of its habitat is similar to that in 
which M. Chimera thrives, the temperature being about 1° Centigrade higher. 
There is a marked variation in the colour of the flowers. At Frontino and El Yarumal the sepals are 
dull yellowish-white, densely cross-blotched with an opaque brown. In the plants found on the mountains 
of Belalcazar the flowers are lar¢ and the sepals are creamy-white, marked with lilac-brown to only 
two-thirds of their length, the points remaining pure white. 
Masdevallia Lowti Rolte is identical with MW. trinema Rehb. f. 
Explanation of Plate : 
Fig. 1, petal, lip, and column, in natural position ;—la, section of ovary ;—2, petal, inner side ;— 
2a, petal, side ;—3, lip ;—8a, side of lip ;—4, column ;—4a, apex of column ; all enlarged. 
(N.B.—The larger leaves in this Plate are drawn from Consul Lehmann’s dried specimens, no 
cultivated plant having as yet attained to such dimensions.) 
