CYPRIPEDIUM ORPHANUM. 
[PuaTe 455.] 
Garden Hybrid. 
Epiphytal, ebulbous. Leaves distichous, some five to six inches in length and 
an inch and a half to two inches in breadth, channelled above, carinate beneath, 
light green, netted and marmorated with dark olive-green on the upper side pale 
green below. Scape terminal, erect, one-flowered, deep brownish purple, slightly 
hirsute, the bract being very short. Flowers large and handsome, dorsal sepal ovate, 
white, tinged in the centre with bright emerald-green, and on the lateral margins 
with rosy purple; it has a brownish purple median band, with numerous equi- 
distant smaller ones of the same hue; lower sepal white, tinged with pale green, 
with darker green veins; peta/s greenish purple, ivory-white on the borders, and 
a broad brownish purple median stripe, in addition the petals are slightly freckle 
towards the base with black dots, and the margin ciliated with black hairs; lip 
obtusely ovate, deep rosy purple, pale beneath. 
CYPRIPEDIUM ORPHANUM, [Reichenbach fil, in Gardeners’ Chronicle, xxvi, p. 166. 
The present plant is one of the Veitchian hybrids raised by Mr. Seden at 
Messrs. James Veitch & Sons’ Nurseries, King’s Road, Chelsea; and although some 
years have elapsed since this plant first flowered, it still retains a foremost place 
amongst the bright-coloured and pleasing kinds. We do not know the exact 
parentage of this plant, but the flower shows evidently that C. Druryi was one 
of its parents, and it carries the distinct marks in the broad median band of 
its dorsal sepal and in the petals, whilst by the marbled leaves some form of C. 
barbatum we take to have been the other, but irrespective of its parentage it is 
a most distinct and beautiful variety. The plant here figured flowered in our 
collection in the Victoria and Paradise Nurseries. 
Cypripedium orphanum is a dwarf-growing evergreen plant belonging to the 
- coriaceous-leaved section, and requires to be kept with the other species and 
varieties of eastern origin. It should be crown in a pot which is well drained, and 
the soil may consist of good peat-fibre and sphagnum moss in about equal parts, 
the latter to be chopped tolerably fine to enable it to mix more freely with the 
peat-fibre ; to this may be added some turfy loam with advantage, the turves of 
loam being well beaten, so that all the fine soil may be removed, and the 
fibrous part mixed with the peat and sphagnum moss. This mixture we have 
found to suit most of the species and varieties belonging to the C. barbatum 
section. It likes a moist atmosphere, and care should be taken that red spider 
does not attack it, nor the black thrips. These latter are great enemies to these 
