SEPTEMBER, 1917.| THE ORCHID REVIEW. 213 
J. J. Bolton, Esq., Pendleton (gr. Mr. J. Law), and Messrs. J. & A. 
McBean, Cooksbridge, staged interesting plants, which appear in the 
above list of awards. 
T is interesting to record that the Ross collection of Orchid drawings 
has been secured for Kew, and an account of the collection appears. in 
a recent issue of the Kew Bulletin, which is here reproduced :— 
Through the kindness of the Bentham Trustees, Kew has acquired a 
valuable collection of Orchid paintings in water colour, made by Mrs. Janet 
Ross, widow of the late H. ]. Ross, Esq., Poggio Gherardo, Florence, 
Italy, formerly of Castagnolo, between Pisa and Florence. Mr. Ross, who 
was an ardent collector of Orchids, was for many years a correspondent 
of Prof. H. G. Reichenbach, of Hamburg, and as many of the drawings 
were made by Mrs. Ross from materials authenticated by the latter, they 
possess a historical value in addition to their artistic merit. They also 
correspond in a good many cases with materials preserved at Kew, for after 
Reichenbach’s death, in 1889, Mr. Ross sent much valuable material to 
Kew. The drawings are about 750 in number, and are very faithfully 
executed. They represent for the most part such species as can be grown 
in Florence, and include a good many from Upper Burma, which were 
brought home by a friend from Mandalay, and formed the nucleus of the 
collection. Others were subsequently added, until the collection became 
one of the finest in Italy, numbering nearly one thousand species. Florence 
is too hot in summer for the cooler-growing species of the American 
Cordilleras, though some of them are represented in the collection, drawn 
from plants introduced by Mr. Ross, which generally flowered once and 
then rapidly deteriorated and died. 
Among drawings of the original type specimens in the collection may 
be mentioned, Coelogyne Rossiana, Rchb. f., a Burmese species that 
flowered in the collection in 1884; Paphinia cristata var. Modigliani, Rchb. 
f. (Lindenia, t. 117), an albino of a highly-coloured species ; Dendrobium 
strebloceras var. Rossianum (Lindenia, t. 124), another albino; Peristeria 
Rossiana, Rchb. f., a species of doubtful origin that flowered in 1889 ; 
Cycnoches Rossianum, Rolfe, a Central American species which produced 
a raceme of male flowers in 1889, and, shortly afterwards, the large solitary 
female flower on the same plant; and Lycaste Rossiana, Rolfe, another 
Central American plant. Probably the most interesting drawing in the 
collection is one of Cycnoches Warscewiczii, Rchb. f., representing an 
inflorescence with five female flowers at the base, and over a dozen of the 
THE ROSS ORCHID DRAWINGS. Eee] 
