10 ARACHNANTHE. 



rarely exceeds 24° C. (75° F.) in the shade, while in the two coldest 

 winter months the thermometer ranges from about — 1° to + T'' C 

 (30° — 45° F ). As a consequence of being exposed to the hardening 

 influence of the weather A. ClarJiei assumes a much more stunted 

 appearance, and never at any time approaches the straggling length of 

 A. Cathcartii. The flowers open in October and last about six 

 weeks."* 



A. Lowii. 



Stems robust, often an inch in diameter, attaining a length of 3 — 5 or 

 more feet under cultivation, and sometimes branched near the base. Leaves 

 spreading, linear-oblong or strap-shaped, 20 — 30 inches long, complicate 

 at base, two-lobed at apex, deep glossy green. Racemes several, from 

 the axils of the leaves, 6 — 9 or more feet long, pendulous, the rachis 

 crimsonish bro'VNTi, scabrous, pubescent, bearing flowers along the entire 

 length at intervals of 3 — 5 inches. Flowers dimorphous with pedicel 

 and ovary less than an inch long, clothed with a dense, hispid, pale 

 brown pubescence, and sheathed on the lower side by a broadly ovate 

 acute, green bract ; the two (rarely three — four under cultivation!) lower- 

 most flowers with broader, shorter, and more fleshy sepals and petals 

 that are elliptic-oblong, bright tawny yellow with some brown dots 

 sprinkled over the surface ; the ordinary flowers about 3 inches in 

 diameter, with linear-oblong, acute, undulated sepals and petals, deep 

 red or chocolate-broAvn, with some light yellow spaces chiefly towards 

 and at the apex ; lip identical in structure in both kinds of flowers, 

 much shorter than the other segments, somewhat slipper-shaped with 

 the toe much contracted, on which is an incurved horn, and behind 

 this a short fleshy plate, the central area light purple, the remainder 

 yellow spotted with purple, except the apex and horn which are 

 wholly yellow. Column very short and thick, greenish spotted with 

 purple above, Avhite dotted with rose in front. 



Arachnanthe Lowii, Benth. in Joiiin. Linn.Soc. XVIII. p. 331 (1881). Id. Gen. 



Plant. III. p. 573. Rolfe in Gard Chron. IV. s. 3 (1888), p. 628. Vanda Lowii, 



Lindl. in Gard. Chron. 1847, p. 239. Id. Fol. Orch. Vanda No. 3 (1853). Illus. 



hort. XT. t. 417. De Puydt, Lcs Orch. t. 46. Warner's :Sel. Orch. II. t. 4. 



Eenanthera Lowii, Echb. Xen. Orch. I. p. 89 (1855). Bot. Mag. t. 5475. Van 



Houtte's Fl. des Sevres. XXI. t. 2256—7. Sander's Rcichenhachia 11. t. 71. 



Vanda Lindleyana, Hort. Low (not Griffith). 



var.— Rohdeniana. 



Plant dwarfer, with the leaves narrower and shorter than in the type. 

 The lowermost yellow flowers, four in number, placed closer together, 

 and separated from the ordinary ones by an interval of 9 — 12 inches; 

 the latter of a brighter colour and difierently spotted. 



A. Lowii Rohdeniana, supra. Vanda Rohdeniana, Hort. Liiddemann. 



* "R. P." in Gard. Chron. VIII. s. 3 (1890), p. 269. 



t One — four in a wild state, in which they have never been observed to be entirely absent. 



