STANHOPEA. 115 



Guatemala. The odour of the flowers is disagreeably powerful^ 

 communicating itself to the fingers when touched. 



Very near Sfanhopea graveolens is the scentless 8. inodora, a 

 native of Mexico, which we have not seen in cultivation. 



S. insignis. 



Scapes usually two-flowered. Flowers fragrant ; sepals and petals more 

 or less reflexed, dull pale yellow dotted with, purple except on the 

 apical area ; the dorsal sepal ovate-lanceolate, tlie lateral two much 

 broader, ovate-oblong ; the petals broadly linear, acute; liypochile of 

 lip sub-globose or sub-hemispheric (longer than broad), much thickened 

 and contracted in front, deep purple beneath, whitish and niucli spotted 

 with purple above ; mesochile horse-shoe shaped, tlie arms bent inwards, 

 attenuated, and almost meeting at their extremities, ivory-white some- 

 times sparingly spotted with purple ; ej^ichile cordate, sub-acute, deeply 

 channelled along the middle, white more or less spotted Avith purple. 

 Column as long as the lip, slightly arched, with two broad, rounded, 

 membraneous wings above the middle, white stained and spotted with 

 purple. 



Stanhopea insignis, Frost and Hook, in Bot. Mag. t. 2948 (1829). Lodd. Bot. Cah. 

 t. 1985. Lindl. Gen. et Sp. Orch. p. 157. Id. in Bot. Rrrj. t. 1837; and 1843, sub. 

 t. 44. Id. Fol. Orch. Stanhopea, No. 1. Rchb. Xen. Orch. I. p. 118. Id. in Walp. 

 Ann. VI. p. 585. 



The species on which the genus was founded and one of the first 



Stanhopeas cultivated in British gardens, it having been introduced 



to the Eoyal Gardens at Kew some time prior to 1829, in which 



year it flowered for the first time; in the following year it flowered 



in the collection of Mr. Cattley at Earnet, and a little later in the 



garden of Earl Fitzwilliam, at Wentworth, near Sheffield, it being 



at that time a very rare plant. It was originally found by 



Humboldt and Bonpland on the trunks of old trees in shady woods 



near Cuenya in Ecuador, in the beginning- of the present century.* 



Stanhopea insignis is well distinguished by its purple globose hypochile 



and heart-shaped epichile. 



S. Martiana. 



Flowers as large as StanhojJea insigni't ; sepals Ijroadly ovate, obtuse, 

 pale straw-yellow or white sparingly spotttnl with crimson-purple ; 

 petals oblong, sub-acute, with larger spots than the sepals ; liypochile 

 of lip hemispheric, dark purple on the inside ; liorns of mesochile 



* Lindl. in Bot. Keg. sub. t. 1837. The assertion that Loddiges imported it from iJrazil 

 is erroneous, 



