THE ORGHID REVIEW. 
Not. 1X OCTOBER, 1got. [No. x06. 
NATURAL HYBRID MILTONIAS. 
SEVERAL natural hybrid Miltonias have made their appearance in gardens, 
among importations of the different Brazilian species, whose history I have 
tried to bring together in the following paper. The Brazilian species of the 
genus are eight in number, namely, M. anceps, M. candida, M. Clowesii, 
M. cuneata, M. flavescens, M. Regnellii, M. Russelliana, and M. spectabilis, 
with its dark variety Moreliana, and it is remarkable how comparatively 
little is recorded of their habitats and distribution—in two or three cases 
practically nothing except that they came from Brazil. The natural hybrids 
between them at present known seem to be seven in number, and in ev ery 
case their origin has been inferred from their intermediate character, rather 
than from other sources of information. From them, however, we may gather 
that the species grow more or less intermixed—for it is only under such 
circumstances that natural hybrids occur—and we are justified in concluding 
that M. spectabilis grows with M. flavescens, M. Clowesii, M. candida, and 
M. Regnellii, which latter occurs with M. candida, and M. Clowesii, and 
the two last mentioned with each other. 
I. . X FESTIVA was the earliest of these natural hybrids, and was 
described by Reichenbach, in 1868, as follows:—A new and showy 
Miltonia ! Imagine a two-flowered M. spectabilis, with narrower ochre- 
coloured sepals and petals; add, in lieu of the blunt and broad apex of the 
lip an acute one; imagine the whole purplish, with eleven dark, radiating 
Streaks, and take longish, very acute bracts—you’ll have the plant. It 
is anold friend of ours, haying been sent to us as early as 1865, by M. 
Liiddemann, of Paris. Yet we were not disposed to write on a single (two- 
flowered) withered peduncle, and it was put aside among our numerous 
doubtful Orchids and labelled as‘ Miltonia, a hybrid.’ If mere conjectures 
may be permitted, when proferred merely as such, we should venture to ask 
whether it is not a mule between Miltonia spectabilis and flavescens. The 
