CATTLEYA LABIATA FOLEYANA. 
[PLate 497.] 
Native of Brazil, 
Epiphytal.  Pseudobulbs monophyllous, clavate, slightly compressed, six to ten 
inches in length, clothed with a greyish adherent sheath when young, furrowed and 
bare with age. Leaves coriaceous, oblong-obtuse, very persistent, six to nine inches 
long, and of a deep green colour. Scape proceeding from an elongated oblong 
compressed double sheath, of a palish green, two to five-flowered. Flowers of 
beautiful form and good substance, eight and a half inches in diameter; sepals 
lanceolate, entire at the margins, recurved at the tips, pure white; petals broadly 
ovate, two and a half inches wide, bluntish at the apex, finely undulated at the 
margins, pure white ; lip three-lobed, side lobes folding over the column, front 
lobe ovate-oblong, well expanded, and pure white, with a deep orange-yellow throat, 
in front of which is a small blotch of delicate rose colour, bilobed at the front 
margins, much crisped and_frilled. Column semi-terete, and grooved beneath, 
white. 
CaTTLEYA LABIATA Foxieyana, H. Williams, Williams’ Orchid-Grower’s Manual, 
7th ed., p. 170. 
The true Cattleya labiata has been known for many years in English gardens, 
having been first imported from Brazil in the year 1818, but then only in small 
quantities, its habitat in Brazil for many years having been a puzzle to importers until 
we ourselves received a small importation through Mr. Clarence Bartlett, assistant 
curator to the Zoological Society of London; this gentleman received it through a 
friend who was engaged in engineering work in Brazil, but who did not know the 
exact spot from where he collected it, having sent other orchids home collected in 
different localities about the same time. It remained an exceedingly rare plant in 
our collections until quite unexpectedly a few years ago it was again discovered by 
the collector of the Horticulture Internationale of Brussels in the neighbourhood of 
Pernambuco, who sent it home believing it to be a new species; it was sent out 
by that firm as C. Warocqueana, but proved subsequently to be the old and much 
desired C. labiata; since that time it has been imported im large quantities by 
other importers, consequently many fine forms have recently flowered, but none we 
think more chaste and beautiful than the variety now before us, which originated 
two years ago in the gardens of Admiral Foley, at F ordingbridge, Hampshire. 
Our present illustration was taken from a plant which flowered in the collection 
of that gentleman, and it is with great pleasure that we are enabled to present to 
our readers such a fine white form of this most desirable Cattleya. 
QQ 
