THE ORCHID REVIEW. 235 
larger and far handsomer than its next ally, Maxillaria longissima, Lindl. 
which has brown flowers anda lip broader at base, much narrower in its 
short middle lobe, and an androclinium without any border. Let me add 
that Messrs. Klaboch informed their enterprising uncle and patron, Senor 
Benito Roezl, that some plants had twenty flowers open at once, and that 
each of these twenty flowers exhaled a most delicious perfume. Is not this 
enough to forgive a Maxillaria its birth as a Maxillaria?’’ The description 
was obviously made from dried specimens, and, so far as I know, the species 
has not appeared in cultivation. There is just a possibility that the above 
plant may be identical, though some dried flowers from a collector of 
Messrs. Charlesworth, Shuttleworth & Co., belonging to the same group and 
having spotted segments, have previously been referred to M. speciosa, but 
do not agree with the present one. We now appear to have a second 
species of the longissima group with spotted segments, but which of them 
is the one described by Reichenbach is not quite certain. The present one 
agrees best in its more acuminate segments, which vary from over five to nearly 
six inches long. The bract, it is true, is only as long as the ovary, while 
Reichenbach described it as rather longer, but even here the dried flowers 
just mentioned offer a great discrepancy, inasmuch as they have bracts 
twice as long as the ovary. The point must remain doubtful for the 
present. 
RK. Aw Re 
LATIN NAMES. 
ANOTHER correspondent has asked us to give the rule for latinising proper 
names when applied to the nomenclature of Orchids and other plants, and, 
now that the pressure on our space is less, we may say a few words on the 
question. It is quite true, as pointed out, that a great diversity of practice 
prevails, and some of it is probably due to misconception of the 
requirements of the case. 
Many years ago the British Association for the Advancement of Science 
appointed a Committee to consider the Rules by which the Nomenclature 
of Zoology might be established on a uniform and permanent basis, and 
among other matters they attempted to deal with the question of latinising 
proper names, though without much success, as may be seen by a discussion 
of the question which was reproduced at page 300 of our fifth volume. We 
believe that there is no Latin rule which is applicable to the case of modern 
names, and one can only be guided by analogy, and conform as closely as 
possible to the custom of classical authors in the termination of Latin 
names. Sir Joseph Hooker, in the discussion above-mentioned, remarked :— 
‘The fact is, that there is no practicable rule for such terminations, and 
