APRIL, 1910.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. Lor 
nobile. For this neat novelty I have to thank Mr. W. Bull, who introduced 
it from Siam.” Mr. Day’s drawing shows a rather short stout stem, with a 
two-flowered raceme, and flowers much resembling D. Bensoniz in colour, 
but the petals narrower and not so flat. 
In March, 1889, Messrs. Veitch sent to Kew a flower which had been 
received as D. signatum, which had clear deep shining canary-yellow 
flowers, and the disc of the lip puberulous, with a pair of small purple-brown 
blotches (the colour being carefully recorded at the time), and in February 
of the following year a named flower also came from Messrs. Seeger & 
Tropp. In December, 1889, M. A. Regnier sent the same thing for deter- 
mination, with the record that it came from the Philippines, but just 
previously he had received some Orchids from Siam, which I then took to 
be the real habitat. This is the plant still cultivated as D. signatum, and 
the parent of the various hybrids credited to it. How it got the name is 
not clear, but I have a suspicion that all the plants sold at Stevens as D. 
tortile were not like that figured by Mr. Day, and that this yellow form 
was amongst them. The name would easily be applied to them when D. 
signatum was named. In April, 1888, a dried flower was received from 
Messrs. Hugh Low & Co., as believed to be D. signatum, Rchb. f., and as 
the colour appears to have been white, and a trace of purple remains on the 
disc, it may be the original plant. 
In 1887, a closely allied species was described, namely D. Friedricks- 
ianum, Rchb. f. (Gard. Chron., 1887, i. p. 648). It had been sent from Siam 
by Roebelen, and was dedicated by request to an Orchid lover of Bangkok. 
It had yellow flowers, with a pair of reddish blotches on the disc of the lip. 
Reichenbach at first hesitated about its distinctnéss from D. signatum, and 
spoke of the latter as one-flowered (as he had done when the species was 
originally described), which suggests that only one of the two flowers drawn 
by Mr. Day was sent to him. Flowers of D. Friedricksianum were sent to 
Kew by Mr. J. O’Brien, in March, 1891, and these were identical with 
unnamed flowers sent by Roebelen from Siam through Messrs. Charlesworth, 
Shuttleworth & Co., in December, 1889. In 1882 a dried specimen of a 
similar yellow Dendrobium was sent to Kew by Murton, as obtained 20 
miles inland from Chantanboon, and this was afterwards regarded as D. 
Friedricksianum. The question remains whether these yellow Dendrobiums 
do not belong to a single somewhat variable species, especiallv as flowers of 
a much finer form were sent as D. signatum by Messrs. Sander in March, 
1891, and of which the habitat was given as Burma. 
There is thus a very interesting question to be cleared up, and we hope 
some correspondent in Siam may be able to throw further light upon it. It 
would also be interesting to know more about the original form described by 
Reichenbach, and figured by Mr. Day. ROA. KR 
