i8 4 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 



CYMBIDIUM RHODOCHILUM. 

 Over a year ago a few plants of this remarkable species were brought 

 from Madagascar by M. G. Warpur, and now one of them is flowering very 

 finely in the Orchid House at Kew. It was noted by M. Warper as 

 follows : — 



"Cymbidium rhodochilum (Rolfe) is a scarlet-lipped species which always 

 grows on masses of Platycerium, on the branches of high trees (chiefly of 

 Albizzia fastigiata), near the rivers and on the higher slopes of the forest, 

 at an elevation of 1,800 to 2,100 feet. It flowers in October, November, 

 and December, and seems to prefer a moderate degreee of humidity and 

 much light. The rest of the flower is green " (Orch. Rev., ix, p. 10). 



It proves to be a very handsome thing. The pseudobulbs are tufted, 

 three to five inches long, and bear about ten gracefully arching leaves, and 

 a scape about two feet long, with twenty flowers and buds. The sepals 

 are light green, reflexed, and two inches long. The petals are suberect, 

 thickly spotted with dark olive green on a light green ground, and about 

 as long as the petals. The lip is three-lobed, with the side lobes resembling 

 the petals in colour, except that the blotches are larger, and the large 

 obcordate front lobe is crimson, and over i£ inches broad at its greatest 

 expanse, with a yellow band down the disc spotted with olive green. It 

 is strange that so striking a plant should not have been introduced before. 

 It appears to have a good constitution, and is likely to prove a great 

 horticultural acquisition. There are two other Madagascar species, C. 

 flabellatum, Lindl., and C. Humblotii, Rolfe, the former of which is not 

 yet known in cultivation. The latter was described in 1892 (Gard. Chron., 

 1892, xii, p. 8), when it flowered in the collection of C. Ingram, Esq., of 

 Godalming. Mr. Warpur also met with this plant, and tells me that it 

 always grows on the stem of the palm called Raphia madagascariensis. 

 R. A. Rolfe. 



Use or Ornament.— What can be the function of the remarkably 

 attenuated drooping petals of Paphiopedilum Sanderianum and Phragmi- 

 pedilum caudatum ? We are generally taught that all such modifications 

 of structure have their use, if only we were able to discover what it is. 

 The two plants grow in countries far apart, yet the form of the petals is so 

 similar as to suggest that they have some common function. They 

 elongate with great rapidity after the flower opens, and one is inclined to 

 wonder whether they serve as ladders by which some insect climbs up to 

 the flower and fertilizes it. Observation of the plants in their native homes 

 might provide a clue. 



