56 MASDEVALLIA. 



dilated at apex into a rotund yellowish blade, on •\vliich are three or 

 four blackish spots ; lip with recurved fleshy claw and concave shell- 

 like blade, in the hollow of which are numerous raised lines radiating 

 from the claw. Column small, terete, white. 



Masdevallia nycterina, Rchb. hi Gard. Chrou. 1873, p. 1238. Id. I. (1874), 

 ]). 639, icon. xyl. M. Chunrera, Illus. liort. 1873, t. 117, not Kclib. De Puydt, 

 Lcs Orch. t. 22. 



One of the discoveries of Gustav Wallis while collecting plants in 



New Granada in 1872, and sent by him to M. Linden, who, in 



error, distributed it under the name of Masdevallia Ghimoira. Its 



habitat is in the neighbourhood of Frontino^ on the western 



Cordillera, at 5,000 — 6,000 feet elevation, where it occurs under the 



same conditions as M. bella and M. Ghimcera. It is very near the 



first named species and M. Vespertilio. The specific name, from 



vvKTepivoi^, literally " nocturnal," may either refer to the sombre 



hues of the flower, or by metonymy, may be some fanciful allusion, 



as ''the night bird," the "bat," etc. 



M. pachyantha. 



Leaves oblanceolate, 6 inches long, deep green and leathery. Scapes 

 longer than the leaves, one-flowered. Flowers Avith a vertical diameter 

 of 2 — 3 inches, exclusive of the sepaline tails ; tube broadly cylindric, 

 slightly bent, pale orange-yellow ; upper sepal* triangular, keeled above, 

 pale yellow-green with three brown-purple veins, and contracted into a 

 stoutish erect tail an inch long ; lateral sepals ovate-oblong, connate to 

 below the middle and prolonged into broad reflexed tails shorter than 

 the upper one, pale yellow-green densely spotted with rose-purple, the 

 spots larger and brighter in colour towards the base ; tails bright 

 yellow ; petals ovate acute, whitish with a brown-purple median line ; 

 lip ligulate, reflexed at the tip, brown below, blackish at the apex. 

 Column terete above, greenish with brown-purple margins. 



Masdevallia pachyantha, Rchb. in Gard. Chron. XXI. (1884), ix 174. 



Discovered many years ago by Cross, and afterwards found by 

 Lehmann, but not introduced till 1883, when plants collected by 

 Carder, in the valley of the Cauca, near Popayan, in New 

 Granada, were sent by him to the horticultural establishment of 

 Messrs. Shuttleworth and Carder, in Park Road, Clapham, where 

 one of them flowered for the first time in May, 1886. Its nearest 

 afl&nity is Masdevallia coriacea, from which it is chiefly distinguisbed 

 by its larger flowers with longer and broader sepaline tails, by 

 its differently formed and differently coloured lip, and by its densely 



