BRASSAVOLA DIGBYANA. 
[PLaTE 241,} 
Native of Honduras. 
Epiphytal. Stems somewhat clavate, compressed, consisting of three or four 
jomts, the internodes clothed with pallid membranaceous sheathing scales. Leaves 
thick, fleshy, solitary, elliptic, obtuse, keeled behind, of a glaucous green colour. 
Peduncles terminal, one-flowered, issuing from an elongated compressed sheath, which 
rises from the base of the leaf. Flowers deliciously fragrant, very large, fully 
five inches across, with the parts spreading; sepals oblong, spread out in the form 
of a triangle, pale yellowish green, sometimes tinged with purple, and marked with 
a few slight lines or strix; petais similar, but somewhat broader and of a_ paler 
tint of green, widely spreading; Lip very large, thick and solid, stalked, cordate 
cucullate, surrounding the column, three inches wide and three and a half inches deep, 
emarginate, of a creamy white colour, purplish at the apex, with a large green 
tubercle on the disk, indistinctly nervose, and margined, except at the very base, 
by a close series of dichotomous filaments from one-half to three-fourths of an inch 
in length, forming a continuous and highly characteristic fringe to this portion of 
the flower. Column stout, semiterete, winged, the stigma three-furrowed, the anther 
bed bearing at the back an incumbent pointed tooth. 
Brassavota Diapyana, Lindley, Botanical Register, 1846, t. 53; Hooker, Botani- 
cal Magazine, t. 4474; Van Hloutte, Flore des Serres, t. 237; Williams, Orchid- 
Grower’s Manual, 6 ed., 148. 
Bietia Dicsyana, Reichenbach fil., in Walpers’ Annales Botanices Systematice, 
VL, 4222. f 
The Brassavolas form a small genus of Orchids, of which, that which we now 
figure is the best that has come under our notice, as regards its blossoms. It is 
also the most curious species we have met with, its fringed lip presenting a very 
peculiar appearance, such as one seldom sees in Orchid flowers. _ Our drawing was 
taken from a well-grown plant in the fine collection of R. H. Measures, Esq., The 
Woodlands, Streatham. 
Brassavola Digbyana is a compact evergreen species, growing about six inches 
in height, and having the pseudobulbs stem-like and compressed; each stem bears 
a solitary glaucous leaf, which issues from a small sheath, one of which terminate 
each of the well-developed stems. The flowers are five inches in width and six 
inches in depth; the sepals and petals being oblong and spreading, of a pale 
green colour with a purplish tinge, while the cordate cucullate lip is of a creamy 
white tinged with purple at the tip. The whole margin of the lip is deeply and 
beautifully fringed with dichotomous filaments nearly three-quarters of an inch long. 
B 
