CORYANTHES. 103 



SUB-TRIBE STANHOPIE^. 



Stems usually fseudo-hulhoas, hearing one or few leaves that are 

 mostly broad and are either plicate or prominently ribbed. Floivers 

 fleshy, of large size and irregular shape, borne in loose racemes, seldom 

 solitary. 



CORYANTHES. 



Hook, in Bot. Mag. 3102 (1832). Lindl. Fol. Orch. 1852. Beiith. et Hook. Gen. Plant. 

 III. p. 549 (1883). 



The group of genera forming the sub-tribe Stanhopie^ of Bentham 

 is characterised in a remarkable degree by the singular shape of 

 their flowers. So unusual and even grotesque is their aspect and 

 structure that there is nothing to be found, not only in the great 

 Orchidean family itself, but even throughout the Vegetable Kingdom 

 with which they can be aptly compared. In no case is this strange- 

 ness more conspicuous than in Coryauthes, the first of the group 

 that claims our attention. Although some of the species of Coryanthes 

 have been known to science for upwards of three-quarters of a 

 century, and most of these have from time to time been in culti- 

 vation for nearly so long a period, they are but rarely seen in the 

 orchid collections of the present day.* Curious and interesting in 

 the highest degree as are their flowers, which are among the largest 

 and most extraordinary in form of all orchids, and not devoid of 

 handsome colouration, they are of comparatively short duration; the 

 plants too are somewhat refractory to the cultivator's care, besides 

 takiug up space that often can ill be spared. 



Upwards of a dozen species of Coryanthes have been introduced 

 into European gardens, and as some of these are quite recent 

 discoveries, the extent of the genus is not accurately known. t They 



* So scarce have plants of Coryanthes become in the orchid collections of this country that 

 up to the time of these sheets passing through the press we have failed to obtain fresh specimens 

 for examination and descrij)tion. To avoid the reproach vvhicli we should have Justly incuired 

 by leaving this remarkable genus unuuticed, we liave been obliged to draw upon previously 

 published mattei'. 



t Among the recently introduced species Coryanthes Buiujcrothii (Lindenia, VI. t. 244) and 

 C. inac)Vi;ori/s (Id. VIII. t. 342), neither of whicii we have seen in a fresh state, are evidently 

 not interior to their predecessors in beauty and intei est. 



