OcTOBER, 1911.] THE ORCHID KEVIEW. 293 
THE GENUS TELIPOGON, 
As the genus Telipogon, mentioned in the preceding article, is practically 
unknown to Orchid growers, we think that the following note from the pen 
of the late Prof. Reichenbach (Gard. Chron., 1877, i. p. 172), will be read 
with interest :— 
The Telipogons form a wonderful ethereal genus. They have narrow 
thin stems, with distichous leaves, now crowded together, now distant. The 
generally ancipitous racemes bear very conspicuous bracts with dorsal keels; 
and the flowers are usually very striking. The narrow triangular sepals are 
totally hidden by the thin, very broad, grand petals, and the lip. Origi- 
nally two species were discovered by Humboldt and Bonpland; by-and-bye, 
after a long interval, a few more came. Lately, however, it became 
necessary to publish no less than twenty-seven species at once. My 
collection at the present time contains more than half a hundred species, 
many of them due to Messrs. Wallis, Roezl, Klaboch, Krause, Bruchmiiller, 
and Patin. 
These beautiful butterfly like things—provided we had such creatures 
with three wings !—have yellow flowers and a short column, now full of 
violet hairs, now with a fabulous crown of striking forked hairs, now with 
white senile hairs, seldom quite naked. The variation of the petals and lip, 
too, is very great ; a considerable number have those organs equal, others 
unequal; some are as thin as the thinnest tracing paper, others have a 
stronger texture; some have few, others numerous nerves, and these are 
quite simple or connected by transverse bars. There are some with many 
projecting small dots on the side of the nerves. 
At present the writer of these lines only knows of a single case of a 
Telipogon having flowered in Europe. It was in 1847, when Messrs. 
Veitch flowered Telipogon obovatum, Lindl. The late A. Bruchmiiller, who 
discovered several new species on the old hunting-grounds of collectors at 
Ocana (Crcesus, hastatus, auritus, Alberti, Bruchmuelleri), made it a point 
to try to bring the Telipogons alive. Sitting on mule-back, he had his 
small cases with his pets before him, but they died when he came to the 
hot regions. . . . It would bea great success to secure the Telipogons 
in Europe, since they afford some new types. Their cousins, the 
Trichoceras, are rather pretty, and much easier to introduce for their 
plump bulbous growth, but their flowers are too small, while the majority 
of Telipogons have much larger flowers. There is no doubt that they 
would prefer a very cool treatment. 
It is certainly unfortunate that in these days of quick transit such a 
remarkable genus cannot be introduced alive. 
