230 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [Avcust, 1914 
dried from it would be equally authentic with the original. There are 
“various specimens at Kew that were dried from the very plant that 
produced Reichenbach’s original type. Another example is supplied by 
Mr. John Day’s collection of Orchid paintings, now at Kew. In the case 
of an unknown plant Mr. Day would make a coloured sketch, and then 
forward materials to Reichenbach, adding the name to the drawing when 
a reply was received. A number of such plants proved new and were 
described, thus giving to the drawing the importance of the actual type. 
The value of a Herbarium depends largely upon the number of type 
and authentically named specimens it contains, hence that of the 
Reichenbachian Herbarium should be very great, quite apart from any 
sentimental value it may possess. It derives a special importance from 
the fact that after Dr. Lindley’s death practically all the novelties obtained 
by Orchid collectors, both in the shape of dried specimens and of those 
that flowered in European gardens during the period of great activity before 
hybrids assumed such importance, were named by Reichenbach. The 
more showy species were figured in the Botanical Magazine and other 
horticultural works, but a great many have never been figured, and some 
of them were never generally diffused in cultivation, or were quickly Jost; 
the result being that a good many are only known from the often imperfect 
descriptions. It is here that the closing of the Reichenbachian Herbarium 
has been chiefly felt. Some of the species have been re-introduced, and 
have been identified, with more or less uncertainty, from descriptions, 
others have probably been described under new names, and some have been 
dried and still await the opportunity to compare them with the type 
specimens, and this period of waiting has not unnaturally been accompanied 
by a good deal of impatience on the part of growers, who have sometimes 
been unable to get names for their plants. : 
The whole of Reichenbach’s types, however, are not contained in his 
Herbarium, for some ot his species were based on specimens in the Lindley 
Herbarium, and others in the General Herbarium at Kew (and doubtless 
elsewhere), though in some cases Reichenbach did not write his names upon 
the sheets. How far these species are represented in the Reichenbachiae 
Herbarium remains to be seen, and, of course, he may have made sketches 
of them. 
Type specimens are of the most varied description, and anything i 
serve. Any specimen that is sent to an establishment for determinatio® 
may be described as a new species, in which case it becomes the type ns 
that description, whatever the subsequent history of the plant may be. ia 
would naturally be dried and preserved, and if the species afterwards pr? 
identical with some older one it would still be the type of the SUP 
42 note- 
novelty. A few flowers pressed between the leaves of some traveller's ® 
