52 CYPEIPEDIUM. 



A special interest is attached to this Cypripede from the fact that 

 all the numerous specimens now growing in orchid collections have 

 been derived from two plants ; the botanical history of the species 

 is, however, obscured by the uncertainty attending the origin of 

 one of the two — the first introduced, which was received by 

 Messrs. Rollisson, it is said, either from Java or from Assam j 

 this plant was sold to Consul Schiller, of Hamburg, in 1855, 

 whence it afterwards became distributed, by division, among 

 European collections. The second plant appeared among an im- 

 portation of Cypripedvum barbatum, collected for us in 1857 by 

 Thomas Lobb, on Mount Ophir, near the southern extremity of 

 the Malay peninsula. The probability is very great that Messrs. 

 Rollisson's plant did not come from either of the localities 

 assigned to it, but from Mount Ophir, au hypothesis supported 

 by the circumstance that no difference has been observed between 

 the progenies derived from the two plants. Although originally 

 found mixed with G. barbatum, its nearest affinities are G. Gurtisii 

 and G. ciliolare* The flowering season of G. superbiens is from 

 May to July, and occasionally later. 



C. tonsum. 



Leaves oval-oblong, 5 — 7 inches long, tesselated with deep and pale 

 green above, frequently spotted with purple towards the base beneath. 

 Scapes erect, 12 — 15 inches high, dull greenish purple, one-flowered. 

 Bract short and hairy, not more than one-third the length of the ovary. 

 Flowers with a polished surface, about 4 inches across vertically ; upper 

 sepal broadly cordate, acute, folded at the mid-vein, minutely ciliolate at 

 the margin, white symmetrically veined with green, the alternate shorter 

 streaks sometimes purplish ; lower sepal elliptic-oblong, acute, much 

 smaller ; petals spreading, sub-spathulate, broader than in most of the 

 allied species, pale green with deeper green veins but sometimes stained 

 with dull purple, with 3 — 5 blackish warts along the mid-vein, and a 

 few smaller ones along the superior margin, which as well as the inferior 

 one is destitute of cilia except near the apex, where there are some- 

 times a few black hairs ; lip prominent, helmet-shaped, dull green 

 tinged with brown and crimson, the infolded lobes broad and warty, 

 almost meeting at their edges. Staminode pale green, reniform with a 

 deep cleft in the basal edge, and with two incurved cusps on the front 

 side, midway between which is a small rounded tooth. 



Cypripedium tonsum, Kchb. in Gard. Chron. XX. (1883), p. 262. 



* See suj)ra, pp. 16 and 20. 



