40 THE ORCHID REVIEW. — [Marcu-Aprit, 1919. 
enterprise where they would meet men of the Central Powers; to stop the 
exchange of its publications, and to engage its members to stop all 
individual exchange of publications or works with natives of the Central 
Powers ; and to exclude for ever those of its members who have compromised 
themselves with the enemy during the abhorred occupation. 
We can understand the intense provocation under which this motion 
was drawn up, and the fear of a repetition of the outrages which our Belgian 
friends have suffered, but we should like to see a way left open for contrition 
and amendment. We look to the destruction of the system which alone 
made such outrages possible, as one of the surest guarantees of sanity in 
the future, and others are being devised. A policy of isolation will be increas- 
- ingly difficult as time goes on, to say nothing of higher considerations, and 
our Belgian friends can hardly have forgotten an outrage of a different kind 
which was perpetrated thirty years ago, and under which Orchidology has 
suffered ever since. The Reichenbachian Herbarium, which had been sealed 
up for a period of twenty-five years under an arbitrary act which no sane 
man could have perpetrated, was opened only three months before war broké 
out, and was to have been available for study at the end of the year. The 
War has extended the period to thirty years. Is it to extend for ever? AD 
International League of Science would have prevented such an outrage, and © 
it is one of the possibilities of the future. | 
_——0< 
DENDROBIUM SPECIOSUM VAR. NITIDUM.—A fine specimen of this rare 
variety, bearing a profusion of racemes of light yellow flowers, was exhibited 
at the R.H.S. meeting held on March rith last, by Sir Jeremiah Colman, 
Bart. The variety is a native of tropical Queensland, and was described by 
the late F. Manson Bailey, in 1885 (Proc. Roy. Soc. Queensl., i. p. 10), from 
a plant which bloomed in the collection at Bowden Park, Queensland. It 
was said to differ from other varieties chiefly in its short dense racemes and 
glossy foliage, but a point which we notice is that the flowers were consider- 
ably smaller than in the type, while the stems are also much more slender, 
in which latter respect it recalls the variety Hillii. The flowers are greenish 
yellow on first opening, ultimately becoming clear light yellow, with a few — 
brown markings on the side lobes of the lip. It is probably a local variety- 
In 1896, Bailey algo described a var. curvicaule (Bot. Bull., xiv. p. 12), 4 
native of Lady Elliott’s Island, in which the stems were said to be curved, 
sometimes almost intoa half circle, and the flowers small, and cream-coloured 
with some thick purple bars on the lip. We have not seen it. 
The history of the species and its varieties will be found at pp- 137-139: 
of our fifteenth volume, where also is a figure of a remarkably fine specimen 
Of the variety Hilliii—R.A.R. : 
