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THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
VoL. XXI.] NOVEMBER, 10973. [No. 251. 
CATASETUM DARWINIANUM, 
‘Last autumn a plant of Catasetum Darwinianum at Kew produced an 
inflorescence with three male flowers, a single female, and one other in a 
transition state, as recorded at page 316 of our last volume. A photograph 
and account of the plant have since been given, together with a history of 
sexuality in the genus (Rolfe in Kew Bulletin, 1913, p. 99-102, with plate). 
The phenomena illustrated were long a profound puzzle to botanists and 
plants bearing female flowers were originally referred to a distinct genus by 
Lindley, under the name of Monachanthus, while the males of others, 
structually identical with C. Darwinianum, were referred to Myanthus, 
because differing from the original Catasetum macrocarpum, Rich. When 
at length an inflorescence ‘was sent to him by the Duke of Devonshire, 
combining two of his supposed genera, he remarked that Myanthus and 
Monachanthus must be restored to Catasetum, adding: ‘‘ But which of the 
species have their masks on, and which show their real faces, a haw 
will not presume to guess.” 
The question was the subject of a noteworty paper by Darwin, “ On the 
Three remarkable Sexual Forms of Catasetum tridentatum,” published in 
1862, in which he sought to show that C. tridentatum, Hook., produced 
three different kinds of flowers, representing male, female, and 
hermaphrodite states of the same species. He established the fact that 
the sportive character of Catasetum, or its ‘curious habit of suddenly 
producing flowers of a totally different kind on the same plant, was simply 
an abnormal combination of different sexual forms in the same individual, 
but he failed to discover that the name Monachanthus viridis included more 
than one species, in fact he misread some remarks of Schomburgk, who had 
stated that Monachanthus alone bore seeds, and had expressed the opinion 
that the three genera formed but a single one. The consequence was that 
Darwin, while establishing the fact that Catasetum was male and 
Monachanthus female, thought that Myanthus barbatus was a 
hermaphrodite form of the same species. This view passed as correct 
for many years, until a re-examination of all the records, aided by some 
fresh material, enabling the writer to clear the matter in a paper “ On the 
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