Utterly unlike as are the nankeen and purple colours of our plant to those of 

 every other Cattleya, still as colour alone is scarcely considered a sufficient botanical 

 distinction, and as in the mere form of its flowers C. Dowiana comes very near to some 

 of the many varieties of C. Ilosske, there was for a while some doubt on my mind as to 

 whether it might not eventually have itself to be ranked among the number, especially 

 as C. pallida, which has been shoAMi (see Plate 108) to be undistinguishable from other 



■ 



forms of C. labiafa, has been found by Hartwcg as far north as Oaxaca. Having lately 

 however had the opportunity of examining additional specimens, I am now fully dis- 

 posed to believe that it is essentially distinct from all other members of the genus. 

 Be this as it may, it is a worthy plant to bear the name of a gallant officer in the 

 American Packet service, the well-known Captain J. M. Dow, to w^hom I have great 

 pleasure in dedicating it, as some slight acknowledgment of the many kindnesses 

 shown and the frequent assistance rendered to English naturalists and men of science 

 who have been so fortunate as to come in his way in their passage along the coasts of 



the Pacific. 



• C. Dowiana is very easily grown, but the warmest end of the Cattleya house seems 



to suit it best. 



Desck. Pseudobulbs eight inches to a foot high, slender at the base but very much 

 swollen in their upper portion, furrowed. Leaves one on each pseudobulb, oblong, 

 thick, and rather broad for the genus, from a span to a foot long. Feduncle two- to 

 six-flowered, exceedingly stout, about six inches long, proceeding from a spatlie some- 

 what shorter than itself. Flowers very large and beautiful, nankeen-coloured with the 



w 



exception of the lip, their total expansion nearly seven inches- Sepals lanceolate, 

 acute, sessile, smooth at the edges. Petals more than twice as broad as the sepals, 

 about the same length as the lip, somewhat obtuse, very mucli waved at the margin. 

 Lq) oblong, crisp, very large and prominent, of a substance resembling dark purple 

 velvet, beautifully and uniformly streaked with golden threads radiating from its centre, 

 where they meet three other golden lines passing longitudinally. It is obscurely three- 

 lobed, the lateral lobes being gathered round so as almost to conceal the column ; the 



central lobe emarginate, very large, with its edges exceedingly curled. CohtmJi not 

 more than one-third the length of the lip. 



