GRAMMATOPHYLLUM. 33 



1838, on which occasion the species was figured in the Botanical 

 Register, and another in the following year at Baron Dimsdale's, 

 Campfield Place, Herts, which was figured in Paxton's Magazine of 

 Botamj. Scarcely anything is recorded of its subsequent history. 

 The variety which first appeared shortly after the introduction 

 of the species has much handsomer flowers and is still occasion- 

 ally seen in cultivation. For materials for description we are 

 indebted to Baron Schroeder, The Dell, Staines. 



G. speciosum. 



Stems sub-cylindric, compressed, 5 — 8 or more feet high, and 3 inches 



in diameter at the thickest, gradually tapering upwards, leafy along the 



apical third of their length.* Leaves distichous, linear-ligulate, 18 — 24 



inches long, sub-acuminate, sheathing and sharply keeled at the 



base. " Scape as thick as a man's finger, 5 — 7 feet long, radical, erect, 



quite glabrous and many - flowered. Flowers distant, 5 — 6 inches in 



diameter, each with a large ovate-lanceolate, concave, greenish bract, an 



inch long; sepals and petals spreading and undulated, broadly oblong 



or sub-obovate, yellow spotted and blotched with deep red-purple ; lip 



small for the size of the flower, three-lobed, the lobes obtuse, the side 



lobes convolute over the column ; the disk furrowed with three plates 



more elevated in the centre, and marked with ciliated red lines ; the 



middle lobe ovate, entire. Column curved, semi-terete, partially spotted 



with red."t 



Grammatophyllum speciosum, Bluine, Bijclr. p. 377 (1825). Id. Bumphia, IV. p. 

 47, t. 191. Lindl. Gen. et Sp. Orch. p. 173. Paxt. Fl. Gard. 11. t. 69. Echb. 

 Xen. Orch. II. p. 16. Bot. Mag. t. 5157. Van Houtte's Fl. des Serves, XIII. t. 

 1386 (copied from Bot. Mag.) Gard. Cliron. X. (1878), p. 181, fig. and VII. s. 3 

 (1890), p. 297. Hook. f. Fl. Brit. Ind. VI. p. 18. Cymbidium scriptum, Sw. 

 Gabertia scripta, Gaud. Epidendrum scriptum, Linn. 



This gigantic orchid excited the wonder of travellers in Malaysia 



long before it found its way into British gardens. The physician 



Rumphius was probably the first European scientist who became 



acquainted with it, and through him, or through Osbeck who visited 



the Malay Archipelago about the middle of the last century, it 



became known to Linnaeus and to his successor OlofF Swartz. Many 



years afterwards it was detected by Finlayson in Cochin China, and 



* The roots of this plant are developed in a remarkable manner : the primary roots are 

 stoutish and persistent ; from these arise a dense plexus of branching secondary roots that 

 spread over the surface of the compost in the pots and beyond the rim ; they attain a 

 length of 4 — 5 inches, with numerous rootlets along the basal half, and die olf at the end 

 of the growing season. Paxton observed a similar phenomenon in Grammatoflujllum multi- 

 florum, and it is probably an essential character of the genus. 



t Our description of the plant was taken at Burford Lodge. The inflorescence we have 

 not seen, and we have therefore copied the floral details from the Botanical Magazine. 



