58 CTPKIPEDIUM. 



the Andean region for us, which extended over the five years 1842 

 — 47. Lobb, who mentions Ruiz and Pavon in his letters, and of 

 whose labours he evidently possessed some knowledge, travelled over 

 pretty much the same ground in the Huanuco district as they did, 

 first in 1842 — 43, and again in 1847, when he brought home C. 

 caudatum. In the meantime Dr. Lindley had partially described 

 C. caudatum in his Genera and Species of Orchidaceous Plants 

 (p. 531) from an imperfect specimen obtained from an herbarium of 

 Ruiz and Pavon preserved at Lima, and sent by Matthews to Sir 

 W. J. Hooker at Kew, adding the following remarkable passage : 

 "There is also in Sir W. Hooker's herbarium a second species taken 

 by Matthews out of the same collection but it is too imperfect to 

 be introduced here." 



We now come to Reichenbach's description of Selenipedium 

 Boissierianum in the Xenia Orchidacea, in which he says : — 



"Wir kennen ein einziges Exemplar Pavon's rait der Etikette 

 ' Cypripedinm grandiflorum, Pillao 1787.' Der Name c grandiflorum ' 

 ist nicht eben passend, nachdeni wir andere Selenipedia niit grosserer 

 ocler gleich grosser Bliithe haben. Wir glaubten denmach den Manu- 

 scriptnamen ohnedies (weil die Pflanze kein achtes Cypripedium) nicht 

 beibehalten werden konnte, ganz fallen lassen zu miissen und es gewarhte 

 una grosse Freude die herrliche Pflanze, vielleicht ein Unicum in Europas 

 Sammlungen, ihrem Besitzer Herrn Edmoncl Boissier zu widnien." 



The only authentic Ruiz and Pavon specimens in England known 

 to us, besides those examined by Dr. Lindley, are two in excellent 

 condition preserved in the Natural History Museum at South 

 Kensington; these specimens, one of flower the other of foliage, 

 are labelled Cypripedium grandiflorum, but they are unmistakeably 

 C. caudatum (Lindl,), and therefore in disagreement with Boissier's 

 specimen. Under these circumstances we think the best course 

 is to pass over the herbarium name grandiflorum and to adopt 

 Reichenbach's Boissierianum for the species described above. 



This first became known in British gardens through our collector, 

 Walter Davis, who found it, unknown to himself at the time, with 

 Cypripedium caudatum, near Muna in the Huanuco district of Peru in 

 1875 — 76, in the same locality in which the latter had been collected 

 by William Lobb in 1847, and presumably both species by Ruiz and 

 Pavon 60 years previously. A single plant only survived the 



