CYPRIPEDIUM LEEANUM. 
[PLATE 223. ] | 
Garden Hybrid. 
Epiphytal. Stemless, of neat dwarf habit, with distichous, spreading, evergreen 
foliage. Leaves linear-oblong acute, the upper surface green, the sheathing base 
spotted with purple. Scapes or Peduncles erect, pubescent, of a dark reddish 
purple, with bracts of the same colour. Flowers large, solitary, four inches across 
from tip to tip of the petals; dorsal sepal very large, fornicate, the apex on 
both sides of the costa further inflexed, one and three quarter inch long by two 
inches across, roundish in outline when flattened, the base green spotted with 
purple for a depth of about half an inch, the rest white, the upper third part 
being unspotted and the remainder thickly spotted in lines with rich purple, the 
spots larger and closer on the line of the costa forming a broken purple central 
bar or stripe; petals oblong obtuse, two and a half inches long, laterally decurved, 
the upper edge wavy the lower one plain, the ground colour tawny marked with 
close set longitudinal purplish red veins, of which one is shorter than the rest, @ 
few spots and hairs at the base, and the marein having a narrow even | edge of 
pale yellowish green; lip pouch-shaped, ovate, with the upper edge straight and 
the hinder margin rounded, brownish purple and veiny outside, the inside yellowish 
marked with reddish purple veins, the edge tawny yellow as is the roundish 
obovate Staminode which bears an orange-yellow spot towards the front and a 
tuft of reddish brown hairs at the base. — 
Cyprirepium Leganum, Veitch MS.; Williams, Orchid-Grower’s Manual, 6 ed., 249. 
Hybrid Cypripediums are becoming very numerous. As a class of free-blooming 
hids they are wonderfully useful, although many of them bear rather too close a 
Tesemblance to each other; still, there are many that are beautiful, and scarcely 
any that may not fairly be described as perfectly distinct. That which we are 
about to describe, Cypripedium Leeanum, is a most charming and desirable kind, 
the result of a cross between C. Spicerianum and C. insigne Maule. It was 
tused by Mr. Seden who has been successful in obtaining many choice hybrids for 
: = Messrs. Veitch and Sons. The new hybrid was exhibited by the Messrs. Veitch 
im January, 1884, at one of the meetings of the Royal Horticultural Society, and 
 & Me following year, 1885, it was shown by Sir Trevor Lawrence, Bart., M.P., 
— sc had succeeded by hybridizing in obtaining the same form, there being eet 
- slight variation among the seedlings, although the plants from Sir Trevor Lawrence's 
: were numerous. It is a remarkable coincidence for two persons thus to effect 
- % — cross with identical results. Our figure was taken from the original — 
the collection of W. Lee, Esq., Downside, Leatherhead, in whose honour it was 
mamed by the Messrs, Veitch and Sons. 
