THE ORCHID REVIEW. 277 
is spotted and the other not, the characters are just reversed, and almost 
invariably the spotting on the petals is less in amount than on the sepals. 
And there is the further difference in this case that the spots are quite 
different from those of normal forms, and might almost as well be 
described as interrupted lines. The lip is rather small and broad, and the 
yellow disc disproportionately large, while the margin bears very numerous 
light brown dots all round. These characters indicate a partially peloriate 
condition, and we hope to be able to examine both the remarkable forms 
named on some future occasion. 
PERISTERIA ELATA. 
THE appearance at the last meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society of a 
fine specimen of Peristeria elata, from the collection of W. W. Astor, Esq., 
of Maidenhead, again calls attention to this remarkable Orchid. The plant 
in question was splendidly grown, bearing eight fine racemes, and gained a 
Cultural Commendation. It also recalls a specimen exhibited in September, 
1898, by Mr. Owen Thomas, Royal Gardens, Windsor, which also carried 
eight fine racemes, and an aggregate of over three hundred flowers. On 
that occasion a First-class Certificate and a Silver Flora Medal were 
awarded in recognition of its exceptional culture. 
The species first flowered in this country, in 1831, in the collection of 
Mr. Richard Harrison, of Liverpool, and was figured in the Botanical 
Magazine (t. 3116), when its history was thus given by Sir William 
Hooker :— 
“‘In the year 1826, Henry Barnard, Esq., of Truxillo, in Peru, com- 
municated to Richard Harrison, Esq., of Liverpool, a bulb of a remarkable 
parasitical Orchidaceous plant which he had found in the neighbourhood 
of Panama, and the flower of which is there looked upon with no little 
consideration, and known to the inhabitants by the name of “ E/ Spirito 
Santo.’ The reason for this appellation was quite obvious on the blossoming 
of the plant, which did not occur in Mr. Harrison’s stove until the summer 
of the present year, 1831, when the centre of the flower exhibited a column 
which, with its summit, or anther, and the projecting glands of the pollen 
masses, together with the almost erect wings, bore a striking resemblance 
to a dove, the emblem of the Third Person in the Trinity. El Spirito Santo 
was therefore applied by the same people, and in the same religious feeling, 
as dictated the naming of the ‘ Passion-flower.’ 
“So soon as the curious flowers were fully expanded, Mr. Harrison, 
with his usual kindness, forwarded me a specimen, together with an ex- 
cellent drawing from the pencil of Mrs. Arnold Harrison. This is, in part 
only, copied to suit the plate of the Magazine, and therefore but imperfectly 
