ZYGOPETALUM MACKAYI. 
[Puate 427.] 
Native of Brazil. 
Epiphytal. Pseudobulbs ovate, scarred with the remains of the old leaves, smooth, 
and deep green. Leaves distichous, lorate, linear-lanceolate, strongly veined, coriaceous 
in texture, and bright green. Scape erect, rising with the young growth, a foot 
and a half long, bearing a raceme of many flowers, which are furnished with large 
ovate acute bracts. Sepals and petals ascending, connate at the base, oblong- 
lanceolate acute, pale green, blotched and_ barred transversely with dark brown; lip 
undivided, spreading, obcordate, clawed at the base, pubescent, white, heavily streaked 
with bluish purple. Column semi-terete, arching. Pollen masses two, nearly sessile, 
on a transverse gland. 
ZYGOPETALUM Mackayi, Hooker, Botanical Magazine, t. 2748;  Loddiges’ 
Botanical Cabinet, t. 1664: Pazxton’s Magazine of Botany, iii., t. 97; Williams 
Orchid Grower's Manual, 6th ed., p. 619. 
We have in the plant now before us a well-known and much-admired species, 
one that has been in cultivation some sixty-five years or more, and although 
somewhat looked down upon and called an old-fashioned thing by the race of young 
beginners in Orchid - growing, it nevertheless still retains -its position in the 
collections of those better acquainted with these plants, from the very fact that 
its large spreading lip displays a colour which is comparatively rare amongst 
Orchids, and is highly prized by all. Moreover as the flowers are produced through 
- the late autumn and winter months, yield an exquisite perfume, and last a very 
long time in full perfection, it is no wonder this fine old plant is very popular. 
As a proof of this, a friend recently sent us a fine photograph of this species, it 
being a plant having eight spikes, which together bore fifty flowers, and these being 
all open at one time, he said the delicious scent of these blooms was _ highly 
appreciated by the ladies of his family, who had the plant standing in the 
dwelling house for about seven weeks, and after this time the blooms were in 
excellent preservation. The plant which we here figure was grown in the Victoria 
and Paradise Nurseries, Upper Holloway, where it bloomed in the month of 
October, 1889, and flowers from the same plant were cut for personal decoration 
the following Christmas; but during this time we carefully guard the blooms 
from the syringe, and also from drip which may condense on the roof. Indeed, 
we contend that every Orchid grower should adopt the preventative which does | 
away with all such danger to not only flowering plants, but the tender leaves 
as well. 
