MASDEVALLIA HARRYANA DECORA. 
[Puare 344.) | | 
Native of New Grenada. 
Sub-terrestrial. Stems short, tufted, slender. Leaves evergreen, coriaceous in. 
texture, some eight inches to a foot long, narrowly oblong, acute at the apex, 
tapering gradually to the base, channelled, keeled behind, and of a uniform deep 
green. Scape radical, erx,, a foot or more high, bearing several bluntish appressed’ 
sheaths. Flowers large, terminal, solitary; upper sepal triangular at the base, 
becoming suddenly recurved, narrow and elongate; lateral sepals connate for about 
half their length, semi-ovate, apiculate, the points approximate, of a uniform light 
rosy purple, faintly striped with deeper purple, the rosy-purple passing into crimson 
a the tips; tube yellow; petals and lip all small, enclosed and hidden in the 
tube. 
MaspEVALLIA HARRYANA DECORA, supra. 
Masdevallia Harryana is an extremely variable, but a most charming species, 
and it is really surprising to see so many beautiful shades of colour, which originate 
from amongst an importation. The present plant appears to be of a different shade 
of colour to any we haye hitherto noted amongst the numerous forms of this 
species. We have already figured several handsome varieties of this protean 
species, but yet there are many others well deserving depicting. Masdevallias are 
specially valuable, as they produce colours- yielded by no other Orchids, and thus 
greatly assist in producing an artistic effect in our Orchid houses. Their flowers 
contrast beautifully with those of such Odontoglossums as Alexandre, Pescatoret, 
Rossii, and other light-flowered kinds, which usually bloom at the same season, such 
an arrangement being more attractive than when all the colours are kept separate. 
Masdevallias when grown into specimens are well adapted for exhibition purposes, 
and produce a grand effect arranged with other plants distinct in colour, In the 
days of exhibiting our chief aim was to show distinct-coloured Orchids, 80 that our 
collection produced an effect that no judge could ignore. This combination of good 
contrasts can only be obtained by experience, and by studying which are the rane 
coloured species and varieties which bloom at the same season. We have exhibite 
largely throughout the United Kingdom and in various foreign countries, oe 
over a space of forty years, and were seldom placed second in any Orchid peaiete . 
tion, this success chiefly arising from the striking effect produced, indepen th 
the general health and size of the specimens, and the same rule ian a s 
arrangement of our Orchids for home decoration, but this fact is too often lost sig 
of in the plant houses. 
