338 | THE ORCHID REVIEW. [NOVEMBER, 1907. 
state, no small anxiety was entertained. Some plants were speedily 
transmitted by Mr. Skinner, but these, on flowering, proved to be merely 
the old C. ventricosum. A mistake was of course suspected, and Mr. 
Skinner being again applied to sent over a fresh supply of plants, for the 
authenticity of which he vouched, but these were scarcely settled in the 
stove when flowers of C. ventricosum were again produced. Mr. Skinner 
being importuned for the third time, and being then on the point of return- 
ing to this country, determined to take one of the plants under his special 
protection during the voyage, which, flowering on the passage, seemed to 
preclude the possibility of further confusion or disappointment. The 
Specimens produced at sea were exhibited, and the plant itself placed in the 
stove at Knypersley, where it commenced growing with the utmost vigour. 
The season of flowering soon arrived, but brought with it a recurrence of 
the former scene of astonishment and vexation, for the blossoms, instead of 
those of the coveted novelty were not distinguishable from the old C. 
ventricosum. They were still hanging to the stem when the inexplicable 
plant sent forth a spike of a totally different character, and which was, in 
fact, precisely similar to the specimens gathered in Guatemala, and to those 
produced on the voyage. It is, at present, impossible to attempt any 
explanation of so strange a phenomenon, especially on the supposition that 
the two forms of flower are analagous to the male and female blossoms of 
other tribes, for C. ventricosum alone not infrequently perfects seeds. The 
species (if as such it may be regarded) was named in honour of Sir Philip 
Egerton, before any of its eccentricities had been discovered, otherwise the 
compliment might have been deemed a dubious one.” 
The plate was intended as a presentment of the phenomenon in question, 
and to make the figure overleaf more intelligible it should be added that the 
two large flowers shown are green and the smaller ones purple. The work 
appeared in 1842, and in September of the following year Lindley received 
from R. S. Holford, Esq., of Westonbirt, near Tetbury, what he termed 
“ Cycnoches ventricosum and C. Egertonianum on the same raceme.” It 
was exhibited at a meeting of the Horticultural Society, and was afterwards 
figured (Bot. Reg. 1843, Misc. PP- 75, 77). The raceme bore five flowers, 
one being green, two purple, and the other two mottled with green and 
purple. 
Neither Bateman nor Lindley could understand these “ freaks,” and 
when C. ventricosum itself was observed to “sport” into something else, 
it only added to the mystery. The species appears to have been soon 
afterwards lost to cultivation—at all events the 
and as the Original gs 
inexplicable. 
phenomenon did not recur— 
pecimens were not preserved, the matter seemed 
In the autumn of 1897 a living plant of some Cycnoches was sent to 
— 
