CYPRIPEDIUM WALLISII. 
[PLaTE 380.] 
Native of Ecuador. 
A terrestrial, stemless plant, with distichous, ligulate, acute leaves, which are 
from a foot to eighteen inches long, leathery in texture, and pale green. Scape 
erect, pubescent, some eighteen inches high, and from three to five flowered. 
Pedicels some six inches long, of a pale green hue, and furnished at the base 
with a compressed sheathing bract. Sepals ovate-lanceolate, elongate, pale greenish 
white, with yellowish green veins and stripes, and bearing a few pale green spots 
in the centre near the base; petals extending into long wavy tails from eighteen 
to twenty inches long, broadest at the base, ivory-white, veined with light green, 
the apical portion more or less suffused with a pale ferrugineous brown ; lip large, 
pouch-like, tipped with rosy crimson, passing into a yellowish green border round 
the aperture, the infolded portion ivory-white, sparingly dotted with reddish purple. 
Staminode triangular, brownish purple, with a yellow centre. . 
CypripepiIum Watusu, Hort.; C. caupatum Watuisu, Veitch; Manual of 
Orchideceous Plants, Part iv., p. 61; C. Waxusu, Williams, Orchid-Grower’s Manual, 
6 ed. p. 261; Lindema, ii, t. 131. 
SELENIPEDIUM Watutsu, Reichenbach fil., Xenia Orchidacea, t. 181. 
This beautiful plant is popularly named the white-flowered Cypripedium 
caudatum, to which it bears close affinity. It appears to have been first found by 
Wallis, whilst collecting Orchids for Mr. Linden, of Brussels, about seventeen years 
ago, and it was first flowered in this country by Mr. C. Winn, of Selby Hill, 
Birmingham. This species has been found also by one or two other collectors, who 
describe the plant as growing in limestone districts, and in positions exposed 
to the full influence of the sun; and notwithstanding its having been several times 
imported, it still remains a rare plant in cultivation in European gardens. All the 
plants belonging to the caudatum section are difficult to establish from the imported 
state, and the present plant is no exception to the rule, whilst none of this section 
which have come under our notice can excel C. caudatum and C. Wallisii for 
grace and beauty, after they have become thoroughly established in our collections. 
Our artist’s drawing was taken from a well-grown plant in the grand collection 
brought together at Downside, Leatherhead, by W. Lee, Esq., but this fine lot of 
plants has since been sold, and the plants forming it have been dispersed, and 
have found a new home in collections in various parts of the world. 
Cypripedium Wallisii is a distinct and beautiful evergreen plant; the foliage 
being leathery in texture, and of a pale soft green colour. .The scape rises from the 
