THE ORCHID REVIEW. git 
SELENIPEDIUM x SEDENI ABNORMAL. 
THE tendency of Selenipedium x Sedeni to produce abnormal flowers has 
often been noticed, but one of the most remarkable we have yet seen has 
been sent from the collection of Colonel Marwood, of Whitby, by Mr. 
Horner. The ovary is completely confluent with the axis, and the sepals 
partially so with the bracts of the next two flowers, thus giving the appear- 
ance of two buds arising from within the flower itself. The two sepals 
stand to right and left of the axis, and the front half of each is sepal-like, 
and the remainder bract-like in texture and colour. Instead of a lip there 
are three separate bodies, one lanceolate, partly coloured, and occupying 
the position of the median petal, the other two arising laterally to it, and 
showing the characteristic spotting, pubescence, and infolded margins of 
the side lobes of the lip. These are evidently the petaloid staminodes A 2 
and A 3 of the Darwinian notation, which in the normal flower coalesce 
with the median petal to form the lip. The petals and column are not 
present in a normal condition, though there are about five light-green 
irregularly crumpled bodies in the centre, and in front of the young buds, 
which probably represent them—in part, at least—and one of these, which 
occupies the position of a 2, has an anther below the apex, evidently one of 
the fertile anthers of the normal flower. Both this and the opposite one 
are united to two undulate crumpled bodies, which apparently represent the 
petals—crumpled because the union prevents them from elongating, as they 
should do—and the one without an anther distinctly shows the median 
nerve. Most remarkable of all, perhaps, is the presence of a perfect anther, 
very shortly stalked, immediately behind the median petal afore-named. 
This is exactly in the position of a 3, the anther totally suppressed in a 
normal flower, which it evidently represents. The flower had been observed 
in this condition about a week before it was sent, and was in the condition 
of a bud a few days before it begins to open, the colours being only partially 
developed and dehiscence of the anthers not having yet begun. It would 
have been better if left on the plant until fully matured. The partially- 
opened condition evidently arose from the fact that the back half of the 
flower represents the bracts and young buds of the inflorescence, and oe 
union caused the organs of the front half of the flower to develop pment 
—the lateral sepals free from each other, but united to some von 
tissue behind, the lip brok-1 up into its three constituent parts, an P e 
‘ additional stamen developed in front, instead of being absent. The irregular 
t of thei diate parts is easily expiamied by the Ley 
union of the flower with the axis, and the quent Be ala i 
example is interesting for the light it throws on the composition of a typ! 
Orchid flower. 
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