CYPRIPEDIUM NIOBE. 
[PLATE 438]. 
Garden Hybrid. 
Terrestrial. A dwarf hybrid plant obtained between Cypripedium Spicerianum and 
C. Fairrieanum. The leaves are oblong, acute, some five or six inches in length, 
and a little more than an inch in breadth, dark green above, paler beneath. Peduncle one- 
flowered. Flowers three inches across; dorsal sepal broadly ovate, white flushed with 
flesh colour, having a broad central streak of rich bright brown, with a small patch of 
apple-green at the base—features that stamp it with the undoubted parentage of C. 
Spicerianum—and having on either side some thinner streaks of light magenta running 
up through it, but all ending below the margin, thus leaving a border of pure white ; 
on the reverse side the streaks are of a deep magenta-purple; /ower sepal smaller, 
creamy white, faintly streaked with pale green; peta/s linear-oblong, of a uniform width 
throughout, deflexed, the points recurved like C. Fairrieanum, ground colour soft 
apple-green, having a broad central stripe of chocolate and a few dotted lines of 
dark brown, margins beautifully undulated, broadly bordered with dark brown, and 
fringed with black hairs; the pouch-like lip medium size, pale green, flushed with 
bright brown in front, the veins green, passing into pale green beneath. Staminode 
sub-orbicular, deeply indented, streaked with green in the centre, having a lunate 
rosy border in front with a white margin. 
Cypripepium Nose, Rolfe, in Gardeners’ Chronicle, January, 1890, p. 9. 
Cypripepium GASKELLIANUM, Gower, The Garden, December, 1890, p. 150. 
This rare and very beautiful hybrid Cypripedium has been obtained by crossing 
C. Spicerianum with C. Fairrieanum, and it flowered in the first instance from a 
seedling obtained in the nurseries of Messrs. Veitch and Sons, of Chelsea, in the early 
part of the year 1890. In the latter part of the same year we received a specimen 
from H. Gaskell, Esq., of Woolton Wood, Woolton, Liverpool, with the intimation 
that the history of the parentage of this seedling was lost; we wished to dedicate 
it to the raiser, and at that time having neither seen nor heard of C. 
Niobe of Messrs. Veitch, we were induced to call it C. Gaskellianum, but that 
name must now stand as a synonym only. From two such elegant species 
as C. Spicerianum and C. Fairrieanum for parents it was not unreasonable to 
expect a superb offspring, and here we have a_ plant which combines the 
beauties of the two parents in a marked degree. From the last named 
but few hybrids have been recorded, but the former, although of more recent 
introduction, has contributed largely to our cross-bred varieties. Our present 
plate was executed from Mr. Gaskell’s specimen, so that we may congratulate him 
