30 
times the size of the males, and totally different in appearance and structure. 
Meantime the presence of the genus in Peru is an interesting discovery, and the 
species, whether it ultimately prove distinct or not, is quite different from 
anything known to me in cultivation at the present time. 
This remarkable genus, which for so long was a puzzle to naturalists, was 
originally described by Dr. Linpiey, in 1832, from a single flower, produced in 
the Nursery of Messrs Loppicss, of Hackney, on a plant received by them from 
Surinam, to which the name of Cycnoches Loddigesii was given. Very soon 
afterwards it began to exhibit those peculiar propensities for which the genus 
soon became famous, as will be seen from the following extract from the Bota- 
nical Register for 1837, in a note under t. 1951. “ In August 1836, Mr. WitiMer, 
of Oldfield, near Birmingham, sent me a specimen of a Cycnoches, which had 
broad petals, a short column, hooded and dilated at the apex, and a broad 
roundish lip, gibbous at the base, and with its stalk much shorter than the 
column. It was, however, destitute of scent, while Cycnoches Loddigesu has, as is 
well known, a delicious odour of Vanilla. I had no doubt of its being a distinct 
species, and called it C. cucullatum. But in the autumn of 1836, in the garden 
of the Horticultural Society, a plant of Cycnoches produced from the opposite 
sides of the same stem two racemes; those of the one raceme were the well-known 
fragrant flowers of Cycnoches Loddigesti, and of the other the scentless flowers of 
the new C. cucullatum. ” 
A few years later a still more remarkable case appeared, as is recorded by 
Bateman in his princely work, The Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala, in 1843, 
t. 40. “ Strange things — ” he writes, “ and no less strange than true — have 
already been recorded of Orchidaceous plants, but the case which is represented 
in the accompanying plate casts into the shade all former frolics of this Protean 
tribe. The facts are briefly as follows : — Among M' Sxinner’s earliest Guatemalan 
collections, attention was particularly directed to the specimens of a plant which 
to the habit of a Cycnoches joined the long pendulous stems of a Gongora, and 
for the possession of which, in a living state, no small anxiety was entertained. 
Some plants were speedily transmitted by M* Skinner, but these, on flowering, 
proved to be merely the old C. ventricoswm. A mistake was of course suspected, 
and M" Skinner being again applied to, sent over a fresh supply of plants, for the 
authenticity of which he vouched; but these were scarcely settled in the stove, when 
flowers of C. ventricosum were again produced ; M* SKINNER being importuned for 
the third time, and being then on the point of returning to this country, deter- 
mined to take one of the plants under his special protection during the voyage, 
which, flowering on the passage, seemed to preclude the possibility of further confu- 
sion or disappointment. The specimens produced at sea were exhibited, and the 
plant itself placed in the stove at Knypersley, where it commenced growing with 
the utmost vigour. The season of flowering soon arrived, but brought with it a 
(To be continued on p. 31.) 
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