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PL. CDLXXIV. 
STAUROPSIS GIGANTEA BENTH. 
THE GIGANTIC STAUROPSIS. 
STAUROPSIS. Vide Lindenia, VII, p. 65. 
Stauropsis gigantea. Foliis late loratis apice obtusissimis emarginatis subaequalibus, racemis foliis duplo bre- 
vioribus, sepalis petalisque oblongo-obovatis obtusis aequalibus, labello incurvo canaliculato dolabriformi obtuso, callo 
conico in medio, auriculis nanis rotundatis. 
Stauropsis gigantea BENTH. in Fourn. Linn. Soc., XVIII, p. 331. — Hook., in Fl. Brit. Ind., V1, p. 27. 
Vanda gigantea LInDL. Gen. et Sp. Orch., p. 215; ID., Fol. Orch., Vanda n° 2; Ip. Gard. Chron., 1858, 
p- 312. — Bot. Mag., t. 5189. 
Fieldia gigantea Rous. F., Xen. Orch., I, p. 39; Ip., Walp. Ann., VI, p. 871. 
Vanda Lindleyana GRIFFITH. Not. ad Plant. Asiat., II, p. 353. — Illustr. Hort., VII, t. 277. 
j his species is perhaps the most remarkable and attractive of the genus 
to which it belongs, in respect to the distinct colouring of its flowers, 
and although it does not rival the elegance of a Vanda, it is nevertheless 
always one of the principal objects of interest in the warm house. 
Its specific name applies to the large size of its flowers, which measure 3 to 
3 */, inches in diameter and appear larger by comparison with the plant, which is 
not generally very large. If one considers the point, the epithet gigantic should 
rather have been bestowed upon its congener S. lissochiloides (Vanda Bateman) 
which attains an exceptional size. 
Stauropsis gigantea is a sturdy growing plant, with a stem as thick as a 
man’s thumb, the leaves are coriaceous, some 20 inches long and bilobed at the 
extremity. Its blooms are borne on drooping racemes to the number of 6 to 10 — 
the flowers themselves are very fleshy — the petals and sepals are of a lively 
yellow, ornamented with bright reddish brown eyes, more numerous on the sepals 
than on the petals. All the back part of the segments are of a dull purple red, the 
labellum is very short and of little breadth, very fleshy, linear-oblong, bearing 
at its base two rounded flaps between which project the two teeth of the callus. 
Stauropsis gigantea was discovered by WaLLicH in Moulmein in 1826. It 
flowered for the first time in Europe in April 1858, both in England and at 
Hamburg. It is comparatively rare in collections. 
It may possibly be of some interest to say a few words upon the classification 
of this species, as the genus Stauropsis, although not of modern creation, is not 
at all familiar to amateurs, who more often substitute the name of Vanda. 
The genus Stauropsis was founded in 1860 by REICHENBACH upon a species 
now no longer existing in cultivation; further, in 1881 RricHENBACH joined to 
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