THE ORCHID REVIEW. 231 
NOTES ON THE GENUS LEPTOTES. 
WE have received some flowers of the pretty little Leptotes bicolor from 
W. E. Ledger, Esq., Wilton Road, Wimbledon, and have much pleasure 
in acting on his suggestion to give a few notes on the a which is still 
very imperfectly known. 
_LEPTOTES BICOLOR, Lindl. (Bot. Reg., xix., t. — the original species 
of the genus, flowered in the collection of Mrs. Arnold Harrison, of Aig- 
burth, near Liverpool, in 1833, having been sent from the Organ Mountains 
by her brother, about the previous year. The generic name, Leptotes, was 
given in allusion to its slender leaves, the plant resembling a smal] Brassa- 
vola in habit. The flowers appear at the base of the leaves, either singly or 
in racemes of two to four flowers, the sepals and petals being white, and 
the lip purple, with a white apex and margin, and the small basal auricles 
light green. The species is said to have an extensive range in Southern 
Brazil. 
It is a very pretty little plant, and succeeds well in shallow pans or in 
teak baskets, which should be suspended near the roof, either in the Inter- 
mediate or the Cool house, and not too heavily shaded. During the 
growing season they should be liberally watered. Under these conditions 
they grow well and bloom very freely, the flowers lasting for several weeks. 
The plants take up very little room, and, when well-grown, are very 
effective, 
According to E. Morren, who twice succeeded in fertilising the flowers, 
the ripe fruits are fragrant, with a perfume something like that of the 
Tonquin bean, and may be infused in cream or milk and used in ices, 
giving them a mild and agreeable flavour, sweeter but less penetrating than 
Vanilla. By the way, has anyone tried to hybridize it with Sophronitis ? 
The two are sufficiently allied to render the experiment worth making, and, 
if successful, the result might be interesting. 
L. BICOLOR VAR. BREVIS, Rolfe (Gard. Chron., 1892, 1., p- 42), is a 
distinct form which appeared with Messrs. B. S. Williams & Son, of Upper 
Holloway. The segments are shorter and broader than usual, and there are 
‘Only a pair of faint purple streaks near the base of the lip, the flower being 
normal in other respects.‘ ~ 
A very curious flower of L. bicolor appeared at Kew in 1883, in which 
one petal was completely metamorphosed into a lip, both in shape and 
colour, while the other petal was also partially changed, the column 
being very small. A figure appears in Gard. Chron., 1883, ii., Pp. 20, fig. 5. 
LipToTEs SERRULATA, Lindl. (Sert. Orch., t. 11), was described from a 
drawing made by Descourtilz, showing much larger flowers, with the basal 
auricles decidedly serrulate, and the lip only striped with purple, the leaves 
also being stouter. Descourtilz states that it grows on the Upper Macahé 
and Ilha Grande, on trunks of Cedrela trees, surviving the conflagrations 
