CYPRIPEDIUM. 11 



Synopsis op Species and Vaeieties. 



Oypripedium Argus. 



Leaves elliptic or oblong-lanceolate, acute, 5 — 8 inches long, 1 — 1^ 



inches broad, pale green, tesselated with oblong dark green spots. Scapes 



12 — 15 or more inches long, one- (rarely two-) flowered. Bract about 



half the length of the ovary. Flowers 2| — 3 inches across vertically ; 



upper sepal broadly ovate-cordate, pointed, minutely ciliolate at the 



margin, white with alternately longer and shorter longitudinal veins 



that are sometimes all green, sometimes the longer ones purple and the 



shorter ones green, the basal area occasionally spotted with blackish 



purple ; lower sepal similar but smaller, notched at the tip, the veins 



paler and uniform ; petals deflexed and undulate, ligulate, acute, margins 



ciliate, white with pale green veins to two-thirds of their length, the 



apical third pale purple, the whole inner surface more or less densely 



spotted with blackish warts, some of which are ocellated ; lip broadly 



calceif orm, dull brownish purple above, pale greenish brown beneath ; 



infolded lobes narrow, pale purple spotted with deep purple. Staminode 



nearly horseshoe-shaped, with two incurved cusps. 



Cypripedium Argus, Kchb. in Gard. Chron. 1873, p. 608. Id. I. (1874), p. 690. 

 Bot. Mag. t. 6175. Fl. Mag. n. s. t. 220. Belg. hort. XXXII (1882), p. 241. C. 

 barbatum Argus, Belg. bort. XXV. p. 57 (1875). C. Pitcberianum, "W. A. Manda in 

 Amer. Flor. III. (1887), p. 178. 



var. — Moensii. 



Dorsal sepal and petals broader than in the common forms ; the 

 spots on the petals larger and more numerous. 

 C. Argus Moensii, Hort. et supra. 



Sllb-var, distinguished by colour only. — nigricans (syns. nigrum, nigro- 



maculatum), the black warts on the petals much crowded and often 



confluent, covering the greater portion of the whole area. 



Cypripedium Argus was discovered by Gustav Wallis, in 1872, in 



Luzon, the principal island of the Philippine group, and was 



introduced by us through him immediately afterwards ; it flowered 



for the first time in Europe in our Chelsea nursery in April of 



the following year. Its tesselated foliage, broad upper sepal, warty 



petals and horseshoe- shaped staminode, clearly indicate its close 



affinity to a group of Oypripedes of which G. venustum is the 



type. Like most of its congeners it is a variable species, but the 



deviations from the type are not of a very marked character, the two 



forms described above being the most distinct that have yet come 



under our cognisance, the first of which appeared in the collection 



of M. Moens, at Lede, in Belgium. The warty eye-like spots on the 



