96 LYCASTE. 



by Mr, Mutford, of Exeter, who presented a plant to the Royal 

 Gardens at Kevv, where it flowered in the summer of 1829; it 

 was shortly afterwards received from Rio de Janeiro by the 

 Horticultural Society of London. It is one of the most distinct 

 of Lycastes, but not generally cultivated; our description was taken 

 from a plant that flowered in our houses in the summer of 1890. 



L. xytriophora. 



Pseudo-bulbs 3 — 4 inches long, much compressed, mono-diphyllous. 

 Leaves 12 — 15 or more inches long. Scapes 4 — 5 inches long, the 

 bract at the base of the ovary large in proportion to the size of the 

 flower. Flowers 3 — 4 inches in diameter ; sepals oblong, obtuse, 

 with a horny apiculus on the under side, light greenish brown ; petals 

 oblong, obtuse, slightly reflexed at the apex, the basal half yellowish green, 

 the apical half white ; lip much smaller than tlie other segments, oblong- 

 ligulate, white sometimes stained with rose-pink on the inner side, three- 

 loljcd, the side lobes incurved, the front lobe thickened along the 

 middle, reflexed, undulate at the margin ; plate of disk very narrow, 

 grooved, yellow spotted with red. Column tri(|uetral, hairy beloAV 

 the stigma. 



Lycaste xytriophora,* Echb. in Saunders' Eef. Sot. II. t. 131 (1882^. 

 The origin of the species is uncertain. In the letterpress 

 accompanying the plate in the Refugium Botanicum, Reichenbach 

 expresses his belief that Wallis collected it in the neighbourhood of 

 Loxa, in northern Peru, for M. Linden in 1867. The late Mr. 

 Wilson Saunders states, however, that he obtained his plants from 

 Costa Rica, statements not easy to be reconciled, as these two 

 locahties are many hundreds of miles apart. It has recently reappeared 

 in several collections, but the origin of the plants has not been 

 divulged. 



HYBRID LYCASTES. 



The genus Lycaste offers so indifferent a field, from a horticultural 

 standpoint, for the operations of the hybridist, that very little has 

 been done in the cross-fertilisation of different species. One of the 

 greatest impediments to the crossing of Lycastes, when the object 

 of the hybridist is the obtaining of forms that shall satisfy the 



* The specific name is obscure; probably 'ivarpov, " an instrument for scraping, planing, 

 or polishing,' in fanciful reference to the shape ol the plate on the labellum, was the word 

 selected; if so, the name should be " xystrophora," 



