CATASETUM ATRATUM. 
[PLate 480.] 
Native of Brazil. 
Epiphytal. Pseudobulbs stout, some five or six inches high, in the young state 
clothed with numerous white membranaceous sheaths, and bearing on the apex 
several broadly lanceolate leaves, which taper slightly at both ends, and are strongly 
ribbed and dark green on the upper side, paler below, deciduous. Scape rising 
from the base of the young growth, erect, but eventually becoming nodding from 
CATASETUM ATRATUM, Lindley, Botanical Magazine, t. 5202, 
cea rac iceman coerce rece nn ee et eS 
‘The plant of which we here give a portrait is a very fine coloured form of 
the species, and it is one that we now very seldom see in collections, Some few 
years back Catasetums were a favourite family of plants with Orchid growers, but 
latterly they have been eschewed by the majority of amateurs, the sombre hues of 
many of these now discarded plants having doubtless been the cause of their un- 
popularity. Catasetum is a very large genus, containing many handsome forms, 
some few of which we have laid before our readers in this and former volumes of 
this work, of which C. Bungerothii, Pl. 352, C. Christyanum, Pl. 88, and @ 
macrocarpum may all be taken as examples. ‘There are also many others which 
rank equal to these for singularity and beauty, so that we are quite unable to 
account for the loss of popularity which has befallen them. We hope, however, to 
again see Catasetums take a foremost place, for we assuredly believe Reichenbach’s 
assertion that “if Orchid-growers take Catasetums into their stoves they are sure to 
become more or less bewitched sooner or later.” The species here figured flowered 
in the collection belonging to Major-General Berkeley, Bitterne, Southampton. 
Catasetum atratum here portrayed is a somewhat small-flowered plant bearing a | 
many-flowered raceme, and the blooms are not wanting in beauty. We cannot say 
what its other sex is like, never having seen it to our knowledge, but for the greater 
part the flowers are unattractive and inconspicuous ; even such fine kinds as the 
new large-flowered ivory-white C. Bungerothti, when it produces flowers of the 
female sex, presents them small in size and of an uniform pale green, which but 
