QQ MASDEVALLIA. 



discovered a few yeai's later by Wagener, in the province of Caracas. 

 We find no record of its being in cultivation til] 1882, it having 

 been imported the year before by Messrs- Sander and Co. 



M. triaristella. 



"Dwarf, densely tufted. Leaves erect, 1 — l^ inches long, slender, subulate 

 and narrowed to both ends, channelled down the face. Scapes 1 — 2 

 flowered, very slender and rigid, rough with minute warts, and bearing- 

 two or more short appressed sheaths. Flowers nearly an inch long, red- 

 brown with yellow tails ; upper sepal small, ovate, concave, suddenly 

 contracted into a flexuose ascending tail, half-an-inch long ; lateral sepals 

 combined into a linear-oblong boat-shaped blade, which is notched at 

 the tip, and bears on each margin beyond the middle a filiform tail 

 about the same length as that of the dorsal sepal ; petals linear-oblong, 

 three-toothed at the tip ; lip tongue-shaped, deeply two-lobed at the base. 

 Column club-shaped. " — Botanical Magaziiie. 



Masdevallia triaristella, Rchb. in Gard. Chron. VI. (1876), p. 226. Id. 559, icon. 



xyl. Bot. Mag. t. 6268. 



A curious and interesting little plant introduced by us from Costa 

 Eica, in 1875, through Endres. It is the type of a very distinct 

 section of the genus called by Reichenbacli TEiAEiSTELLiE. of which the 

 distinguishing characters are given in page 18. Allied to it are 

 three or four other species in cultivation, including the next to be 

 described, all of which, with one exception, Masdevallia gemwata, have 

 received specific names in reference to their curions sepaline tails, 

 thus triaristella means 'Graving three awns^'; tridactylites , ^'having 

 three fingers''; triglochin, ^'having three barbs," etc. 



M. Tridactylites. 



A minute caespitose plant with erect aAvl-shaped leaves about H inches 

 long, channelled down the face. Scapes rigid, longer than the leaves, one- 

 floAvered. Upper sepal sub-orbicular, concave, keeled behind, ochreous 

 yellow stained with red, and contracted into a yellow filiform tail, slightly 

 swollen at the tip ; lower connate sepals boat-shaped, notched at the 

 tip, dull purple, tails similar to that of the upper sepal ; petals oblong, 

 acute, purple with yeUow margins ; lip tongue-shaped, dull purple. 

 Masdevallia Tridactylites, Rchb. in Gard. Chron. XIX. (1883), p. 784. 



Very similar to Masdevallia triaristella, but a somewhat larger plant 

 with differently coloured flowers. Its origin is presumably New 

 Granadian, but no locality is recorded.* 



* Masdevallia Tridacti/litcs approaches the Ee&trepias nearer than any other Masdevallia 

 yet observed ; this affinity is seen chiefly in the tree upper sepal with its club-Jike tail, 

 and in the comparatively broad lip that is scarcely appressed to the column. Of course 

 its two pollinia clearly separate it from the Eestrepias, which always have four pollinia. 



