360 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
should cancel them before the reporters go round, and then perhaps some 
of this unnecessary confusion would be prevented, as it is almost too much 
to expect that reporters should verify every name for themselves. We have 
frequently suppressed such names in our reports, but they have appeared 
elsewhere. We would refer our readers to the remarks on this question at 
pages 133, 165, and 172 of the present volume, and urge them to assist in 
checking the rapidly growing confusion to which Mr. Chamberlain has called 
attention.—Ep.] 
ogre 
CYPRIPEDIUM x MEDEIA MONSTROSA. 
A FLOWER of this curious plant has been sent by Mr. W. B..Latham, 
Curator of the Birmingham Botanic Garden, who remarks that he raised it 
by crossing C. Spicerianum with the pollen of C. hirsutissimum, and that 
the flowers retain their abnormal character every season. It appears to 
have been first recorded in the autumn of 1892 (Gard. Chron. 1892, xii., 
P- 713), but was then said to have bloomed for three or four years, never 
varying in character. An interesting note is given by Hansen (Orch. Hyb., 
p- 70), which we do not remember to have met with elsewhere, and presume 
that it was communicated by Mr. Latham. He remarks that Mr. Latham 
“had sent it to Mr. R. A. Rolfe, who named it provisionally as above, and 
added :—‘ Veitch’s hybrid is normal in character, yours may or may not 
become so hereafter. Others from the same cross may come all right if you 
have them. The lip is not really absent, but abnormal in shape, more like a 
sepal. Its greatest curiosity: to my mind is that the two stamens are 
changed into perfect staminodes. — I should keep it, if only as a curiosity ; 
it is a very instructive plant. If proof were wanted that the staminode is 
only a modified stamen, surely here it is.’” However, it appears that only 
a single seedling was raised. The plant is said to be intermediate between 
the two parents, but the dorsal sepal and staminode are almost identical 
with C. Spicerianum, except that the former is reduced in size and nearly 
flat. The petals also have a little white at the apex, like the dorsal sepal. 
The lip is elliptical-oblong, a little concave at apex, and light green 
irregularly striped with dull purple. An examination of the flower reveals 
the highly interesting fact that the two additional staminodes do not belong 
to the inner staminal whorl, but to the outer one, and thus represent the two 
missing side lobes of the lip. The filaments of the two normal stamens of 
Cypripedium are present, but without the anther, and are in their usual 
position at the base and on either side of the stigma, and within but slightly 
above the sup taminodes, affording additional confirmation of 
the theory that the side lobes of the lip in Orchids are staminodial in their 
origin. 
