CYCNOCHES. 



139 



CYCNOCHES. 



Lindl. Gen. et Sp. Orch. p. 154 (1832). Benth. et Hook. Gen. Plant. III. p. 552 (1883). 



Still more curious than Mormodes is the genus Cycnoches or 

 " Swan's-neck " orchids as the name implies, which like Catasetum 

 have unisexual flowers, but which in some species are so strangely 

 dimorphic that before their true character was understood the plants 

 that produced them were referred to different species; and when 

 both kinds appeared on the same plant, which was and is still a 

 comparatively rare occurrence in the cultivated state, such was regarded 

 as a "sport" or "inexplicable puzzle."* Our knowledge of the genus 

 is still very imperfect, bat what is known of it is well summarised 

 by Mr. Rolfe in recent articles published in the Gardeners' Chronicle 

 and elsewhere which the reader will find well worth perusal. t In 

 these articles it will be seen that the author has succeeded in 

 solving the phenomena of dimorphism, which until recently seemed 

 an almost inextricable puzzle. He has shown that Cycnoches, like 

 the allied genus Catasetum, has dioecious flowers. In the male the 

 ovary is abortive and slender ; the column is long and slender with 

 perfect pollinia and no stigma; while in the female the ovary is 

 stout and perfectly developed, the column is short and stout, without 

 pollinia but with a perfect stigma situated between a pair of fleshy 

 wings. The perianth is also dimorphic, but strange to say, this 

 character does not apply to all the species. The genus thence 

 comprises two very distinct groups — Eucycnoches, so called because 

 it includes the original species of genus, and in which the perianth 

 scarcely differs in the two sexes ; and Heteranth^, in which it is 

 very dissimilar especially in the lip. The former contains Cycnoches 

 chlorochilon, C. Haagei, C. Loddigesii, C. ventricosum and C. versicolor; 

 the latter G. aureum, G. Egertonianum, G. glanduliferum, G. macidatum, 

 C. pentadactylon, G. iDeruvianum, C. Rossianum and G. Warscewiczii. 

 The floral characters of Cycnoches will be further understood from 

 the descriptions that follow. In their vegetative organs the species so 



* A good illustration of a monoecious plant of Cycnoches is given in the second series 

 of the Floral Magazine, plate 381, and reproduced in Pfitzer's Grundzilge. 



t Vol. VI. s. 3 (1889), p. 188; X. (1891), p. 69; and XI. s. 3 (1892), p. 204; also 

 Garden and Forest, 1892, p. 88. So few si)ecies of Cycnoches are cultivated in the orchid 

 collections of this country that materials for examination are seldom forthcoming, and from 

 this cause we have been unable to deal with this extraordinary genus so fully or so 

 satisfactorily as we could wish. The species described in the text are well deserving the 

 attention of cultivators. 



