1 08 stanhopeA. 



subsequently found by the German naturalist and traveller, Karsten, 

 near St. Esteban at tlie foot of the Cumbre de Valencia in 

 Venezuela, and introduced by him into European gardens under the 

 name of Cori/anthes Albertince. 



Dr. Lindley remarked of this species that ''it is not uncommon 

 in the woods of Demerara, hanging from the branches of trees and 

 suspending in the air the singular lips of its flowers like fairy 

 baskets for the use of the birds and insects that inhabit the 

 surrounding foliage." When the flowers first expand in the glass- 

 houses of this country (and doubtless in their native forests) the 

 horn-like appendages at the base of the column constantly distil 

 water into the bucket-like epichile of the labellum, but the quantity 

 sensibly diminishes with the age of the flower. 



The species is variable in the colour of its flowers, a circumstance 

 noticed shortly after its introduction. In the variety figured as 

 Parkeri the hypochile of the lip is a dingy brown-purple; in 

 punctata and Albertince the sepals and petals are spotted as well 

 as the labellum, and in the last-named the " bucket " or epichile 

 is sanguineous-red. 



STANHOPEA. 



Frost in Bot. Mag. sub. t. 2948 (1829). Lindl. Fol. Orch. 1852. Rclib. Xeu. Orcli. I. 

 p. 111. Beuth. et Hook. Gen. Plant. HI. p. 549. 



In Stanhopea we have a very natural genus of orchids scarcely 

 less remarkable for the structure and unusual aspect of the flowers 

 than Coryanthes. Like Coryanthes the flowers are large with mem- 

 braneous sepals and petals of comparatively simple form, while the 

 labellum is fleshy and of complex structure, the most obvious parts 

 of which will be easily recognised from the figure introduced into 

 the text ; for so curious are the different parts of the lip of a 

 Stanhopea, that a clear description of them without such help is well- 

 nigh impossible. 



Over twenty species of Stanhopea have been published, nearly all 

 of them from garden specimens, for owing to the fleshy texture of 

 the labeUum, from which the specific characters are almost wholly 



