118 STANHOPEA. 



S. tigrina. 



Scapes 3 — 4 flowered ; flowers 6 — 7 iiiclies across the lateral sepals. 



Sepals broadly ovate, obtuse, deep sanguineous red with a few pale 



yellow spots and blotches near the base, and a larger pale yellow area 



at the apex ; the dorsal sepal narrower and more obtuse than the lateral 



two which are concave ; petals linear-oblong, with revolute margins, dark 



vinous red at the base, the middle area blotched with vinous red and 



pale yellow, the apical area wholly yellow or sparingly spotted ; lip 



broadly oval in outline ; the hypochile deeply concave, in shape like 



the stern half of a boat, orange-yellow blotched with maroon-purple at 



the sides ; the niesochile two sickle-like horns, bent round towards the 



apex of the epichile and nearly parallel with its sides, ivory-white 



spotted with purple to beyond the middle ; the epichile sub-rhomboidal, 



three-toothed at the apex, ivory-white spotted with purple. Column 



gently curved, compressed, with two rounded wings, yellowish spotted 



with red. 



Staubopca tigrina, Batem. Orch. Mcx. et Guat. t. 7. Lindl. in Bot. Reg. 1839, 

 t. 1 ; and 1843, sub. t. 44. Id. Fol. Orch. Stanhopea, No. 11. Bot. Mag.'t. 4197. 

 Van Houtte's Fl. des Serves, VII. t. 713. Echb. Xen. Orch. I. p. 120. Lindcnia, 

 II. t. 51. Gard. Chron. IV. s. 3 (1888), p. 418, icon. xyL 



'J'his very remarkable Stanhopea, the largest and in some respects 

 the handsomest of the genus, seems to have been known to the 

 Jesuit, Hermandez, who wrote on the Natural History of Mexico 

 in the seventeenth century and who mentions it under the name 

 of GoatzonU CoxoahitI, doubtless the vernacular name of the plant 

 at that epoch; but his description is too vague to render the 

 identification with Stanhopea tigrina certain, although highly probable. 

 The plant appears to have been overlooked by the Mexican botanists 

 La Llave and Lexarza, the latter of whom published his Orchidaceum 

 Opusculum in 1825, in which he describes fifty species of Mexican 

 orchids ; but owing to the terse and quaint mode of description 

 employed, it must be admitted that several of them cannot now 

 with certainty be identified. 



Stanhopea tigrina was first figured and described by Mr. Bateman in 

 his Orchidacea of Mexico and Guatemala shortly after its introduction 

 into British gardens by Messrs. Low and Co., of Clapton, through 

 their collector Henchman, who gathered it in 1835 at a considerable 

 elevation on the mountains in the neighbourhood of Xalapa; it 

 flowered for the first time in this country in Mr. Bateman's collection 

 at Knypersley in May, 1837. It was shortly afterwards detected by 

 Hartweg and also by Galeotti growing upon oaks in thick forests 

 covering the Cordillera near Vera Cruz at 3,000 — i,000 feet elevation. 



