CYPRIPEDIUM INSIGNE PUNCTATUM 
VIOLACEUM. 
[PuaTe 278.] 
Native of Northern India. 
Terrestrial. Acaulescent. Leaves distichous, strap-shaped, keeled beneath, thin 
and leathery in texture, from nine to twelve inches long, and light green in colour. 
Scape erect, hairy, longer than the leaves, furnished with a large, thin and 
membraneous sheath, one-flowered. Flowers some four inches or more in diameter, 
bright and showy; dorsal sepal large, somewhat oblong-ovate, not contracted 
towards the base as in the variety Maudlez, flat, slightly incurved at the top, pure 
erystalline-white, the central portion towards the base being soft pea-green, through 
which run large spots of purplish violet arranged in lines, the connate lateral sepals 
obovate, entire (not undulate) at the edges, downy on the under side, pale green, 
ornamented with spotted lines of reddish brown ; petals spreading, ligulate, obtuse, 
undulate on both margins, destitute of the peculiar crimped appearance so conspicuous 
a feature on the upper margins of C. insigne Maule, purplish or olive-green, netted 
with dark umber, and faintly tinged with yellow; lip smaller, and more compact than 
in the variety Maulei, dark chestnut-red with a slight tinge’ of purple. Staminode 
somewhat obcordate, furnished with a small blunt tooth-like pomt in the centre, 
yellow freckled with orange-red. ! 
CYPRIPEDIUM INSIGNE PUNCTATUM vVIoLACEUM, O’Brien, in Gardeners’ Chronicle, 
NS, Xviii., 716, f. 127; Burbidge, Garden, xxi., 444, t. 342; Williams, Orchid- 
Grower's Manual, 6 ed., p. 248. 3 
CyPRIPEpium rnsigne Cuanrint, Hort.; L'Orchidophile, v. 8, p. 36; Kevue 
Horticole, 1878, 130. 
All growers of Orchids now fully recognise the merits of Cypripedium insigne, 
@ plant which we figured in the fourth volume of this work, Plate 155. The 
form of that species, however, which we here portray is far more beautiful than 
the type, and is*now well known in English gardens as C. insigne punctatum 
violaceum, although, as will be seen by the references given above, it passes Im 
continental collections by the name of C. isigne Chantinii. This variety was first 
mported into this country in the year 1855, amongst a miscellaneous lot of Orchids 
from Nepal, and until it flowered was supposed to be merely a typical ©. i 
It was first noticed by us and described as a very fine form of C. snngne ed 
Sth edition of our Orchid-Grower’s Manual, p., 154, but at that time its full 
beauties had not been developed. It is a very free-blooming lant, and wae send 
object when grown into a good specimen, deserving to be extensively —e bl ; 
Winter decoration, as its robust constitution permits of its removal to the window 
