58 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [MaRcH, 1917- 
Consul Lehmann as Pescatorea Klabochorum. This is the plant here 
figured, and it appears to be quite intermediate between P. Klabochorum 
and B. coelestis, hence the name that has been given to it (Rolfe, in O.R., 
Xill. p. 329). Indeed, Mrs. Brandt, in sending full materials, suggested that 
it was a natural hybrid with this parentage. It was exhibited in London 
in November, 1899, where it appears to have been named Pescatorea 
Gairiana, Rchb. f., but the latter was imported as Bollea ccelestis, so that 
it may also be a hybrid. Materials are still wanting for comparison, and 
the original specimen is presumably locked up in the Reichenbachian 
Herbarium. Some interesting points await solution. 
iss | OBITUARY. POOry 
EORGE MASSEE, V.M.H.—We record with deep regret the death, on 
February 17th, after a short illness, of Mr. George Edward Massee, 
V.M.H., of Park Place, The Common, Sevenoaks, last head of the M ycological 
Department of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. George Massee was the 
son of a farmer, and was born at Scampston, East Yorkshire, in 1850, and 
early developed a taste for natural history and drawing, taking the National 
Medal of the year at the York School of Art for drawing from nature. He 
also studied physics, chemistry, and botany, the latter under Dr. Spruce, 
the celebrated traveller (who was a relative of his mother), to whose 
classical work on the Hepatica Massee contributed most of the drawings. 
He then went to the West Indies and South America to study plants and 
collect Orchids, sending home in bulk, among other things, Oncidium 
macranthum and Nanodes Meduse. On his return he took up farming and 
botanical study, specialising on fungi and plant diseases. On his father’s 
death he came to Kew, studying for a time in the Herbarium, and in 1893 
he was appointed Mycologist, in succession to Dr. M. C. Cooke, a post 
which he held until his retirement in 1915. Among his numerous writings 
on fungi Massee contributed some important papers on the diseases of 
Orchids. In 1892 he published a paper on a Vanilla disease, Calospora 
Vanillz, Massee (Kew Bull., 1892, pp. 111-120, with plate), and three years 
later he contributed a paper on the Spot Disease of Orchids to the Annals 
of Botany (ix. pp. 421-429, with plate), in which he showed that Spot was 
not caused by a parasitic fungus, but by chill under an excess of water, the 
damaged tissues being afterwards invaded by fungi that live upon decaying 
vegetable matter. In 1905 he published an account of an Orchid diseas 
found on the leaves of Oncidium Cavendishianum (Gard.. Chron., 1905, il- 
Pp. 153, fig. 53), and Cattleya Dowiana (Kew Bull., 1895, p. 302), this being 
caused by a new fungus, Hemileia americana, a relative of the well-known 
Coffee disease. He was buried at Richmond Cemetery on February 21st, 
