COMPARETTIA. 165 



collections of Europe. It was first imported from Brazil by Messrs. 

 Loddiges in 1837^ but it seems to have been subsequently lost. 

 About the year 1865 it was re-introduced from the neighbourhood 

 of Rio de Janeiro by M. Ambroise Verschaffelt^ of Ghent^ through 

 his correspondent M. Pinel. 



0. falcata. 



" Pseudo-bulbs clustered, small, oblong, more or less sheathed with 



scales, monophyllous. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, acute, 1| — 2^ inches 



long. Scapes slender, purplish, 7 — 9 inches, pendent, loosely racemose 



towards the extremity, 4 — 7 (or more) flowered ; bracts distant, small 



and scale-like. Flowers about an inch in diameter, purplish red, almost 



crimson ; dorsal sepal and petals free, concave ; lateral sepals connate, 



placed immediately under the labellum and spurred ; lip broadly 



obcordate, emarginate with an elevation on the claw, bicalcarate at the 



base, the two spurs enclosed by the larger sepaline spur which is 



about as long as the blade of the labellum." — Botanical Magazine. 



Comparettia falcata, Poppig et Endl. Nov. Gen. et Sp. I. p. 42 (1835). Bot. 

 Mag. t. 4980. Rchb. in Walp. Ann. VI. p. 688. Lindenia, IV. t. 163. Williams' 

 Orch. Alb. VIII. t. 359. C. rosea, Lindl. in Bot. Reg. 1840, misc. No. 186. Paxt, 

 J. Bot. X. p. 1. Van Houtte's Fl. des Serrcs, 11. t. 6 (1846). 



Comparettia falcata, the type species of the genus, was discovered 

 by Poppig some time prior to 1835 in Ecuador, between Cassapi 

 and Pampayaco (not found on modern maps). The earliest 

 notice of it as a horticultural plant occurs in 1840, when a 

 Comparettia was cultivated by Messrs. Loddiges, who informed Dr. 

 Lindley that they had imported it from the Spanish Main. This 

 was named G. rosea by Dr. Lindley and was afterwards figured 

 under that name in Paxton's Magazine of Botany, but rightly 

 reduced to a synonym of C. falcata by Reichenbach in his synopsis 

 of the genus in Walper's Annales Botanices. It was next found by 

 Linden in the Veuezuelian province of Merida, and subsequently 

 imported by him from that region through his relative Louis Schlim. 

 It has since been gathered in Guatemala, Cuba, Santa Martha, 

 Ecuador and other places, thus proving the species to be very 

 widely dispersed. 



The region inhabited liy Comparettia falcata may be thus briefly 

 sketched. In latitude it occurs from 2 S. to 16 N., that is, from 

 Central Ecuador to Guatemala. Its lowest vertical limit in Guatemala 

 is about 3,200 feet elevation, gradually increasing to 4,000 feet at 

 the equator, the highest corresponding limits being estimated at 4,500 

 and 5,700 feet. The climate of this region is rather changeable, 



