STAN HOPE A. 



Ill 



The leaves are broadly lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate, prominently 

 nerved beneath, 12 — 15 or more inches long, narrowed below into a 

 channelled foot-stalk. 



The. scapes are stoutish, pendulous, usually bearing 2 — 3 flowers, but 

 in a few species 5 — 7 flowars. The bracts are large, membraneous, 

 more or less inflated, and as long as or shorter than the ovaries. 

 , The genus was proposed by Mr. John Frosty of Kew, for Stanhopea 

 insignis, which flowered in the Royal Gardens in October, 1829, and 

 was communicated by him to Dr. (afterwards Sir William) Hooker, 

 by whom it was described in the Botanical Magazine, t. 2948. It 

 was named in compliment to Earl Stanhope, at that time President 

 of the Medico-Botanical Society of London. 



Cultural Note. — The Stanhopeas require the temperature of the tropical 

 or East Indian house as it is usually called by most cultivators. 

 On account of the flowers being produced on scapes that are quite 

 pendulous, shallow teak baskets are best, so constructed as to admit 

 of the scapes making their way through the bottom and sides, and 

 sufficiently large to afford space for the compost and drainage. The 

 compost should consist of one part fibrous peat and two parts sphagnum 

 moss, some cultivators using sphagnum only, and for drainage long pieces 

 of charcoal laid across the bottom bars of the basket ; others prefer clean 

 broken crocks in rather large pieces, and placed so as to allow an easy 

 egress of the flower scapes. During the growing season the supply of 

 water must be constant, but in winter, if the plants are suspended in 

 a house in which a greater or less degree of humidity is always main- 

 tained, the Stanhopeas require but little water directly applied. While 

 in flower they may be removed to a cooler and drier house. Eed 

 spider and thrip sometimes attack the young leaves, from Avliich they 

 may be removed by sponging with clean tepid water. 



Stanhopea Bucephalus. 



Pseudo-bulbs and leaves as described above. Scapes 3 — 5 or more 

 flowered. Flowers powerfully fragrant, tawny orange-yellow with san- 

 guineous spots scattered irregularly over the whole flower, the column 

 whitish and more densely spotted than the other parts ; dorsal sepal 

 oblong, acute ; lateral sepals much larger, ovate-oblong, acute, 3 inches 

 long ; petals similar to the dorsal sepal, but smaller ; lip clawed, hypochile 

 cymbiform, narrow at the base, thickened in front ; mesochile horseshoe 

 shaped, the arms bent forwards like the prongs of a hay-fork ; epichile 

 broadly ovate or sub-rotund, concave, terminating in a recurved cusp. 

 Column very narrow, winged upwards. 



Stanhopea biicei)halns, Liiidl. Geu. et Sp. Orch. p. 157 (18;?2). Id. in Bot. Meg. 

 1843, sub. t. 44, and 1845, t. 24. Id. Fol. Orch. Stanhopea, No. 3. Bot. Mag. t. 

 5278. Rchb. Xen. Orcli. I. p. 121. S. graudifiora, Hchb. in Walp. Aini. VI. p. 587 

 (1863), not of Liiidl. Anguloa grandiflora, H. 13. K. Nov. Gen. et Sp. I. p. 345 (1815). 



