CYPRIPEDIUM SUPERBIENS. 
[PLATE 486.] 
Native of Mount Ophir, Malay. 
Terrestrial. Stemless, having distichous, oblong-ligulate leaves, which are keeled 
below, tessellated on the upper surface with pale and dark green, but of an uniform 
pale green beneath. Scape erect, bearing a large and showy solitary flower bract, 
short, much smaller than the ovary. lowers about four inches across, dorsal sepal 
broadly ovate, acute, white, regularly streaked with pale green, the lower sepal much 
smaller, ovate-lanceolate, similar in colour to the upper one; petals slightly deflexed, 
oblong-ligulate, white, streaked with pale green, thickly spotted with dark blackish 
purple wart-like spots, and fringed on the margins with dark hairs; Jip large, pouch- 
like, of a bright brownish green, flushed with purple in front, passing into light 
green beneath; the large infolded lobes are reddish crimson. Staminode sub-reniform, 
obtuse, white, netted with pale green. 
CYPRIPEDIUM SUPERBIENS, Reichenbach fil. in Bonplandia, 1885, p. 227. Ibid in 
Xenia Orchidacea, ii, p. 9, t. 103. Warner’s Select Orchidaceous Plants, ii., t. 12. 
Flore des Serres, xix., t. 1996. Williams’ Orchid Grower’s Manual, 6th ed., p. 258. 
CYPRIPEDIUM BARBATUM suUPERBUM, Belgique Horticole, 1883, p. 97. 
CypripEDIUM VerrcH1ANuM, L’Jilustration Horticole, xii., t. 429. 
CYPRIPEDIUM BARBATUM VeEITcHII, Flore des Serres, xiv., p. 161, t. 1453. 
This is a very fine form of the Slipper Orchid, and one that has been very 
useful to the hybridiser. We consider it one of the finest Cypripedes in 
cultivation, and we should recommend all collectors to have it in their collections 
as being a great beauty and free bloomer, added to which are its long-lasting 
qualities. It was one of the parents of that superb hybrid raised in the 
first place by Messrs. J. Veitch and Sons, of Chelsea, and named by them 
Cypripedium Morganie, since obtained in different varieties by other growers, and 
many other fine forms have also this plant as one of their parents. It has only 
been imported upon two occasions, the first time by Messrs. Rollisson and Sons, then 
of Tooting, and which was said to have been sent to them from Assam or from Java 
—two localities far enough apart to be easily determined, we should think. This 
plant passed into the hands of Consul Schiller, of Hamburgh, then an assiduous 
collector of new and rare species and varieties. The next time it came home it 
was sent to Messrs. J. Veitch and Sons, of Chelsea, from Mount Ophir, with a lot of 
C. barbatum collected by Thomas Lobb. These are the only occasions upon which it 
has been found in a wild state, which would lead one to infer it had a hybrid 
