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PHALAINOPSIS VIOLACEA. 
[Pate 182.] 
Native of Singapore. 
Epiphytal. Stems short or none, a tuft of thick fleshy roots issuing from the 
crown. Leaves few, large, “ gorgeous,” fleshy, deflexed, broadly oblong, five to six 
inches long and about three inches wide, bright green with the surface striate. 
Peduncle reaching to a foot in length, and bearing six or seven flowers (in our 
specimen two-flowered), furnished with green bracts, issuing from between the bases 
of the leaves, and only just elevating the flowers above them. Flowers medium- 
sized, two inches broad, and about three inches long, peculiar in the arrangement of 
their colours ; sepals (dorsal) obovate-oblong acute, an inch long, plane, white or very 
pale creamy yellow, with a greenish tinge, and purplish-tinted towards the base, 
the lateral sepals deflexed, oblong acute subfalcate, somewhat twisted, the outer half 
pale creamy yellow like the dorsal sepal, the inner half deep purple, the colours 
(lisposed longitudinally ; petals about the same size, but more ovate, similar in colour 
to the dorsal sepal; lip clawed, three-lobed, the lateral lobes small bifid, yellow tipped 
with red, and with a golden yellow callus, the front lobe clawed, obovate-oblong 
apiculate, intense purple-magenta, convex, the margin inflexed at the base, the 
whole of the front portion bent forwards. Column deep purple, projected over 
the lip. 
E PHALENOPSIS VIOLACEA, Teiysman and Binnendjik, Plante Nove, in Horto Bogo- 
rensi culte,—f. Rehb.; Reichenbach fil., in Gardeners’ Chronicle, N.S., X., 234; 
Floral Magazine, n.s., t. 342. 
This, if not a showy plant, is a most compact-growing and pretty species of 
Phalenopsis, one that will be very much admired for its beautiful glossy green foliage, 
which Reichenbach designates as “ gorgeous,” while the interesting flowers which 
overhang it, give to it a very charming appearance. The various large-flowered 
species that have been introduced during the last few years are no doubt very 
beautiful, but these smaller-growing kinds are the means of introducing greater 
Variety into our orchid collections, and that now before us, for example, with its 
richly-coloured lip, is one to which this remark eminently applies. Our artist has 
taken his drawing from a well-grown plant in the fine collection of R. Warner, Esq., 
Broomfield, near Chelmsford, but it has been represented in the Floral — 
with a seven-flowered spike, and Professor Reichenbach speaks of it as a 
having branched racemes a foot long. We ourselves have never seen & plant produce 
More than two or three flowers on a spike at a time. 
Phalenopsis violacea is a compact evergreen species, with bright es ae 
striated foliage, which grows about ten inches in length, and is ot A Groups 
