AUGUST, 1910.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 249 
the lawn before his house.” Druce (Fl. Berk., p. 477) records finding one 
specimen with white flowers on the Moulsford Downs, in Berkshire, and 
Townsend (F/. Hamp., p. 414) mentions that on the Downs above Ashford, 
Hampshire, the white form occurs with the type. A year or twoago we sawa 
fine continental specimen, but have mislaid the record for the moment. It 
is no doubt the Ophrys albiflora, Sprun., which is cited by Reichenbach 
under O. apifera (Fl. Germ., xiii. p.. 97). It isa very pretty variety, having 
white sepals and petals, the former with a bright green mid-nerve, and the 
lip light green, without the usual brown markings. RO Awd 
ODONTOGLOSSUM WILLIAMSIANUM. 
Tuis handsome Odontoglossum is now flowering. in quantity in several 
establishments, and the question of its status has again been raised. Jt 
was described by Reichenbach in 1881 (Gard. Chron.. 1881, ii. p- 134), the 
author being uncertain whether it was a new species or a natural hybrid. 
He remarked: ‘‘ This would be like Odontoglossum grande, whose colour 
it has, if the petals were not shorter, broader, blunter, and if the column 
had not uncinate wings, such as are found in Odontoglossum Insleayi and 
Schlieperianum. The keels would be like those of O. grande, were they 
not sharper and had they not an adventitious angle at each side. It may 
be a hybrid between the species just named and QO. Schlieperianum.” 
Nothing was stated as to its origin. It received a First-class Certificate 
from the R.H.S. on June 24th, 1884, and soon afterwards it was figured in 
the Orchid Album (iv. t. 163), when its habitat was recorded as Costa Rica. 
In 1887 Messrs. Veitch made it a variety of O. grande (Man. Orch., i. p. 
33), speaking of it as an unique plant in-the collection of the Comte de 
Germiny, at Gouville, near Rouen. Some more definite information has 
recently come to hand. A flower has been figured in Orchis (ii. p. 49, fig. 
22), where a letter from Mr. J. Van de Putte, of Ghent, is cited, stating 
that for four or five years his collector in the Sierra de Las Minas, 
Guatemala, sent each year three or four, once ten plants, and that in 1906 
he himself obtained about fifty plants in the same mountains. He also 
adds that O. grande does not exist there. It is now clear that O. 
Williamsianum cannot be a natural hybrid between O. grande and O. 
Schlieperianum. It never appeared to me to be truly intermediate, and as 
the geographical indications were against it, I purposely omitted it from 
the list of Mexican Natural hybrid Odontoglossums (O.R., ix. p. 260). It is 
evidently a local species, nearly allied to O. grande, which it closely 
resembles in colour, but differing in its much longer inflorescence, smaller 
flowers, shorter, very obtuse petals, and the uncinate column wings, in the 
latter respect resembling O. Schlieperianum and O. Insleayi. It also 
flowers much earlier in the season than O. grande. R. A. ROLFE. 
