MILTONIA SPECTABILIS RADIANS. 
[Puate 164. ] 
Native of Brazil. 
Epiphytal. Pseuwdobulbs produced on a progressive scaly rhizome, short, oblong, com- 
pressed, with accessory subleafy sheaths or bracts investing their bas ves two, 
lorate, obtuse, emarginate, keeled behind, of a pale green colour. Scape ancipitous, 
each bearing a solitary blossom, produced from the base of the pseudobulb in the 
axil of the accessory leafy bract, and sheathed with yellowish lanceolate appressed 
spathaceous bracts. Flowers about three inches in diameter and over four inches 
in depth, distinctly marked on the disk; sepals oblong acute, spreading trianglewise, 
an inch and three-quarters long, creamy white; petals similar in all respects except 
that they are rather shorter; dip free, roundish flabelliform, or pandurately-obovate, 
retuse, slightly wavy at the edge, and conspicuously marked by about three pairs 
of longitudinal veins, pure white with a distinct crest of three yellow linear lamelle, 
rather thickened and blunt in front; on the discal portion is a conspicuous blotch of 
about six club-shaped slightly curved bars three-quarters of an inch long of magenta- 
purple, radiating from the base, two thin lines running back through the trilamellate 
yellow crest, and the thin ends of the others continued backwards parallel with the 
erest as far as its base. ‘ Column white, bordered with magenta near the top. 
MILTONIA sPECTABILIS RADIANS, Reichenbach fil., Xenia Orchidacea, i, p. 130; 
Id., Walpers’ Annales Botanices Systematice, vi., 759. 
There are several fine species of Miltonia in cultivation, M. spectabilis and its 
varieties being amongst the most beautiful. The variety which we now bring under 
the notice of our readers-is a most chaste-looking plant, and being one of the best of 
the spectabilis section, it should be more extensively grown. ‘The cultivation of this 
species has been very much neglected of late years. In former times we were m 
the habit of seeing fine specimens of M. spectabilis and also of its variety Moreliana, 
especially the former, each bearing a hundred or more flowers, and coming at a 
dull time of year, when few Orchids are in bloom—that is, during August, 
September, October, and November. This should be a sufficient inducement to gam 
them a prominent place in our Orchid houses. We ourselves having flowered the 
ae lant we now figure, were anxious to bring so charming a subject before the public, 
'n order that it and its congeners may become more generally cultivated than they 
are at present, and in such a manner as to secure good specimens for flowering 
during the autumn season. ee 
i Miltonia spectabilis radians is an evergreen plant, and grows about eight inches : 
height, with short thin pseudobulbs of a light green colour. The foliage is also pale 
