] 2 ARACHNANTHE. 



its arrival; but it was not till the autumn of 1862, when this grand 

 orchid flowered in greater perfection in the collection of the late 

 Mr. Sigismund Rucker, at West Hill, Wandsworth, that the extra- 

 ordinary character of the inflorescence was first fully appreciated. A 

 plant had previously flowered in the collection of Herr Reichenheim, 

 at Berlin, and after an examination of fresh materials supplied from 

 that collection, the late Professor Reichenbach removed the species 

 from Vanda to Renanthera. 



It is not so much the unusual appearance of the inflorescence itself 

 that arrests the attention of the beholder, as the constant occurrence 

 of two kinds of flowers on the same raceme, the two (sometimes 

 three) lowermost being somewhat larger than the others, their perianth 

 segments broader, and of a bright orange or tawny yellow dotted 

 with red -purple, while all the others are deep chocolate-brown bordered 

 and streaked with yellow. An examination of the two kinds of 

 flowers produced by a plant in one of our houses in the summer of 

 1889 convinced us that structurally they are essentially the same. 

 The dimorphism remains a mystery that has yet to be solved. 



One of our illustrations represents the flowering of the grcand plant 

 of Arachnanthe Lowii in the collection of Baron Alphouse de Rothschild 

 at Ferrieres-en-Brie, in France, in July, 1885. M. Bergman, to whose 

 courtesy we are indebted for the illustration, informs us that in 1887, 

 when the plant flowered again, the inflorescence was still more extra- 

 ordinary, and that 650 flowers were counted on the plant on that 

 occasion. 



Deviations from the usual type occasionally occur. The variety 

 described above first appeared in M. Liiddemann's nursery at Paris, and 

 is now in the collection of M. le Due de Massa at the Chateau de 

 Franconville, near Luzarches, in France. A raceme kindly sent to us 

 by Monsieur le Due showed no tangible character by which the plant 

 can be specifically separated from the type, and the name, Rohdeniana, 

 under which it is cultivated, can only be regarded as a varietal one 

 for garden use. Renanthera Rohaniana, described by Reichenbach in 

 Xeiiia OrcMdacea, I. p. 89, is unknown to u.^. It is said to differ 

 from Arachnanthe {Renanthera) Lowii in the keel of the lip ; it was 

 in cultivation 30 years ago in the collection of Prince Camille de 

 Rohan, at Sichrow, in Bohemia. 



