124 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [JUNE, 1917- 
ase SIBERIAN CYPRIPEDIUMS. ——[2aaja Paar 
WO beautiful hardy Cypripediums with white flowers have just 4 
bloomed in the collection of H. J. Elwes, Esq., Colesborne, Glos. | 
Both are said to have been imported by Van Tubergen, in rgr4, the larger a 
one as C. ventricosum album, the smaller as C. microsaccos album, this q | 
being represented as a white variety of a Manchurian species, most like C. 
Calceolus, with two to four flowers to a stem. The one sent has a single 
flower. The habitat of the larger one is not stated, but we take it to be 
preserved (Gard. Chron., 1905, i. p. 414, fig. 183). It is said to have been 
an albino of a beautiful rose-coloured Cypripedium, a batch of which was _ 
also exhibited by Messrs. Cutbush under the name of C. ventricosum, to = 
which a First-class Certificate was awarded. All are said to have appeared — | 
in the same batch from Siberia, and we recorded them as C. macranthum 4 1 
and C. macranthum album (O.R., xvi. pp. 184-5, 224). 
At the same meeting Messrs. Cutbush exhibited plants of a closely-allied 
Japanese species under the name of C. macranthum, under which name (as — 
well as a batch which flowered at Kew) we believe they were obtained from 
the Yokohama Nursery Co. This plant much resembles C. macranthum im : 
general character, but differs in having the flowers veined and mottled with — 
white, not uniformly rose-coloured as in the old Siberian plant. This” 
Japanese form we at first referred to as an imperfectly-known Japanes¢ 
species, C. Thumbergii, Blume (O.R., xvi. p. 185), but it has since been 
regarded asa distinct species, C. speciosum, Rolfe (Kew Bull., 19t1, p. 207 
O.R., xix. ps 205 ;- Bot, Mag., t. 8386). Itis an old confusion, and probably 
arose from the fact that the plant bears the name C. macranthum in the 
Japanese Floras. The two are now generally regarded as quite distinct 
and Messrs. Cutbush remark that there are differences in the roots. 
Whether the albino of the Japanese plant has been observed is a point © 
on which we are not quite clear, but Messrs. Cutbush remarked: ‘‘ We 
have pure white forms of C. macranthum, and also several brownish types, 
which, we think, proves that the species hybridise together in nature.” 
The latter remark probably applies to the Siberian plant, which, it has 
long been known grows with C. Calceolus in Siberia, where both species 
are common. As long ago as r8g1, M. Barbey described and figured, 
under the name of C. Calceolus Xx macranthos, a natural hybrid between 
these two species, which flowered on his rockwork at Valleyres, all three 
having flowered in a batch of plants obtained from St. Petersburg as C- 
macranthum (O.R., xii. p. 185). This natural hybrid was afterwards 
