LISSOCHILUS. 6 



temperature available in the orchid houses of Europe. L. Krehdi is 

 a sub-tropical species for which an intermediate temperature is suitable. 

 They should all be potted in fibrous loam, and treated generally as 

 recommended for Eulophia guineensis (see supra). 



Lissochilus giganteus. 



A robust stately plant. Leaves narrowly lanceolate, acute, 3 — 5 feet 

 long. Scapes erect, 6 — 8 or more feet high, racemed above the 

 middle, many - flowered ; bracts large, broadly oval-oblong, apiculate, 

 shorter than the stalked ovaries. Flowers 2^ — 3 inches across the 

 petals ; sepals turned sharply back, spathidate, concave at the apex, 

 greenish with a faint tinge of rose ; petals large, erect, broadly obovate- 

 oblong, obtuse, light rose-purple ; lip three-lobed, produced at the base 

 into a broad fimnel-shajjed spur, light rose-purple with some darker 

 streaks on the front lobe, the side lobes rounded, erect, the inter- 

 mediate lobe semi-orbicular, obtuse, with three yellow keels extending 

 to the base of the funnel. Column semi-terete, bent, white. 



Lissochilus giganteus, Welwitsch ex Eclib. ia Flora, XLVIII. (1865), p. 187, 

 and in Gard. Chron. III. s. 3 (1888), p. 616, with fig. Williams' Orch. Alb. X. 

 t. 457. 



This is an orchid of gigantic stature and an extraordinary plant 

 in many respects, affording another illustration of the old adage, 

 '' Semper aliquid novi ex Africa) provenit." It was originally 

 discovered by Dr. Welwitsch some time prior to 1862 in Angola, 

 in Portuguese Africa, where it is widely dispersed, and also along 

 the valley of the Congo. Dr. Welwitsch informed the late Professor 

 Reichenbach that the plant is occasionally submerged and afterwards 

 roasted in a soil as hard as brick. * 



We copy from the Gardeners' Chronicle the following extract from 

 Johnston's '' Congo " relating to this remarkable orchid : — 



" The hot sun and the oozy mud call into existence a plant life 

 which must parallel in rank luxuriance and monstrous growth the 

 forests of the coal measures, and reproduce for our eyes in these 

 degenerate days somewhat of the majesty of the vegetable kingdom in 

 bygone epochs. In the marshy spots near the river shore are masses 

 of that splendid orchid Lissochilus (jigaateus, a terrestrial species that 

 shoots up often to the height of 16 feet from the ground, bearing 

 such a head of red-mauve scented blossoms as scarcely any flower in 

 the world can equal for beauty and delicacy of form. These orchids 

 with their light green spear-like leaves and their tall swaying flower 

 stalks, grow in groups of forty and fifty together, often reflected in 



* Gard. Chron. loc. cit. supra. Conditions that wouUl appear to render its cultivation 

 in the glass-houses of Europe an impossibility ; nevertheless the plant at Burford Lodge 

 lives and thrives. 



