MAXILLARIA VENUSTA. 
[PuaTE 492.] 
Native of Venezuela and U.S. of Colombia. 
Epiphytal.  Pseudobulbs oval, much compressed at the sides, and bearing a 
single large leaf which is thick and coriaceous in texture and dark rich green in 
colour. Scapes slender, erect, furnished with long sheathing bracts, and bearing 
one large and showy nodding flower often measuring six inches across. Sepals and 
petals. spreading, waxy in texture, the latter much the smaller; lip thick and 
fleshy in texture, three-lobed, the middle lobe ovate, reflexed, straw-coloured or 
_ buff-yellow on the upper side, creamy white beneath, and having a few spots of 
crimson on the disk; side lobes oblong, tipped with crimson. Colwmn somewhat 
three-cornered, of a creamy white. 
MAXILLARIA veENusTA, Linden et Reichenbach fil., Bonplandia, 1854, p. 277. 
Pescatorea, t. 38. Botanical Magazine, t. 5296. Bateman’s Second Century of 
Orchidaceous Plants, t. 118. Britten and Gowers Orchids for Amateurs, p. 105. 
Wiliams’ Orchid Grower’s Manual, 6th edition, p. 405. 
MAXILLARIA ANATOMORUM, Reichenbach fil, Xena Orchidacea, i., t. 69. 
MaxiniartA Karpreyert, Reichenbach fil, in Gardeners’ Chronicle, N.s., 1885, 
XXlll., p. 239. 
The plant here figured is a great beauty to those who can appreciate pure 
white flowers, besides which it is also almost a perpetual bloomer, and it deserves a 
place in every collection of Orchidaceous plants. ~ It was discovered upwards of fifty 
years ago by Linden on the mountains “in Venezuela, but this discovery, however, 
did not result in living plants being brought to this country; and ib was not until 
some twelve years later that his collector, Schlim, sent it home to him in a living 
state, and it flowered a few years afterwards. It gradually spread through the 
collections of Europe, and we do not think it has ever been absent from cultivation 
since. The plant belongs to a family which did not at one time occupy a very 
proud position in the Orchid world, the genus having been deprived of so many 
plants that from time to time have been consigned to other genera; but during 
the last decade or two, several large-flowered and handsome kinds have been added, 
of which Mazillaria luteo-alba, Vol. iii., t. 106, and M. Sanderiana, Vol. &.,. & 463, 
have already figured in these pages. Both of these are grand species, well deserving 
of every attention, and together with the present species, MM. grandiflora, M. fucata, 
M. lepidota, M. leptosepala, and some others have restored the genus again to 
popularity amongst Orchid growers. The plant we here delmente is one that 
flowered in our own establishment in the Victoria and Paradise Nurseries during 
