MILTONIA REGNELLI PURPUREA. 
[PLATE 72. ] 
Native of Brazil. 
Epiphytal. Pseudobulbs ovate, obtuse, compressed, diphyllous. Leaves lorate, 
acute, narrowed to the base, pale green, about a foot long. Scapes bearing three or 
four large showy flowers, each with a small bract at the base of its pedicel. Flowers 
showy, larger than in the type, being nearly three inches across; sepals’ lanceolate, 
about an inch and: one-fourth in length, of a delicate shade of rosy pink, paler 
almost white at the edges, and with a darker median line; petals oblong, somewhat 
broader than the sepals and similar in colour; lip flat, subpandurate, broad, one and 
a half inch across, emarginate at the apex, cuneate at the base, of an intense magenta- 
crimson, marked with indistinct reticulations of deeper crimson; the disk white, and 
furnished with three small elevated crests, of which the middle one is shorter. 
Column deep crimson at the base, whitish at the apex. 
Mittonta ReGNELLI puRPUREA, Hort. Veitch; Williams, Orchid Grower's 
Manual, 4 ed., 209; 5 ed., 224; Floral Magazine, t 490. 
The Miltonias form a small genus allied to Odontoglossum and containing some 
beautiful Species and varieties, most of which have been inmates of our stoves and 
Orchid houses for many years. We remember some of them as long as we have 
had the management of Orchids, which is now for forty years, but even before that 
time there were large specimens cultivated in some old-established gardens, such as those 
at Bothwell Castle, where may now be found many fine plants of M. spectabilis and its 
variety, Moreliana, which have been grown by Mr. Turnbull, the gardener, for more 
than forty years. M. Clowesii and M. candida have been in cultivation for quite 
as long a period. We mention these facts to show to the present generation of 
Orchid-growers that they should not complain as they are apt to do, that these plants 
are difficult to cultivate. This is not the case, in witness whereof these grand old 
Plants, which have been grown, as above stated, for so many years, without much care 
having been bestowed upon them, may be cited. In the collection above referred 
to, for example, they do not profess to cultivate Orchids specially, but grow them 
mn the ordinary plant stoves. Surely the cultivators of the present day should have 
no difficulty in attaining the same degree of success. We have seen J. spectabilis 
a much as three feet across, one mass of bloom, a sight never to be forgotten. 
We do hope that Miltonias will be more grown than they are at present, as they 
meee tito flower at a time- when comparatively few Orchids are in bloom, and keep 
on flowering during the autumn months. ‘They will be found useful for cutting 
Purposes, a8 well as for our autumn exhibitions. What, for example, could be more 
