80 PAPHINIA. 



Four species, all South American, have been figured and described, 

 of which the last introduced is unknown to us. 



Cultural Note. — The plants being of small size with a pendulous 

 inflorescence, they are best cultivated in shallow pans near the glass 

 of tlie East Indian house, care being taken to shade them from too 

 powerful direct sunlight during the summer months. The pans should 

 be filled to about two-thirds of their depth with the usual drainage 

 material, and the remainder with a mixture of sphagnum moss and 

 fibrous peat on which the plants should be placed, not inserted, so 

 that the base of the pseudo-bulbs may be on a level with the rim 

 of the pan. As the Paphinias naturally grow in a very humid 

 atmosphere, constant attention must be given to the supply of water, 

 and also to keeping the plants free from insect pests. 



Paphinia cristata. 



Pseudo-bulbs clustered, ovate-oblong, 1 — 1| inch long, di-triphyllous. 



Leaves lanceolate, acute, plicate, 7 — 10 inches long. Peduncles 



slender, quite pendulous, 1 — 3 flowered ; bracts nearly an inch long, 



loose, membraneous, brownish. Flowers 3 — -4 inches in diameter ; 



sepals and petals similar, broadly lanceolate, sub-acuminate, the basal 



half pale yellow streaked transversely with chocolate-brown, the apical 



half wholly brown but sometimes streaked longitudinally with pale 



yellow ; lip shorter than the sepals and petals, clawed, the blade 



fleshy, distinctly bipartite, dark chocolate-purple ; the hypochile 



transversely oblong with the front angles acute, the epichile sub- 



rhomboidal with a tuft of white hairs at the apex. Crest an oblong 



raised plate, bidentate at the top, below which are four prominent 



tubercles. Column semi-terete with a tooth-like auricle on each side 



of the stigma, yellowish green banded with chocolate towards the 



base ; rostellum beaked. 



Papliinia cristata, Lindl. in Bot. Reg. 1843, misc. p. 14. Bot. Mag. t. 4836. 

 Van Houtte's Fl. des Serves, IV. t. 335. "Williams' Orch. Alb. I. t. 34. Lindenia, 

 I. t. 30 (Randii). Maxillaria cristata, Lindl. in Bot. Reg. t. 1811. 



sub-var. — Modiglianiana {Lindenia, III. f. 117). 



Flowers white except the anther which is light yellow. 

 Paphinia cristata is the type species, and the only one that was 

 known for many years till the discovery of P. rugosa and 

 P. grandiflora in 1876. It was first cultivated in this country in 

 1836 by Mr. Knight, our predecessor at the Royal Exotic Nursery, 

 who had received it from Trinidad. A few years later it was 

 detected by the brothers Schomburgk on the banks of the Kamvvatta 

 river, in British Guiana, growing on the trunks of trees; and 

 subsequently by Purdie in northern Colombia, by whom it was sent 



