THE ORCHID REVIEW 
Vor. XV.] DECEMBER, 1907. [No. 180. 
DIES ORCHIDIANI, 
THE other day I looked in at one of the R.H.S. meetings, and I saw over a 
hundred plants of the charming little Cypripedium or Paphiopedilum 
’ Fairrieanum in flower. And the Gardener’s Chronicle, in recording the fact, 
remarked :—“‘ Messrs. Cypher have this plant in many thousands, and have 
hopes of flowering an albino form before all are proved.’" Only think of it, 
when less than three years ago we were doubting its very existence. Before 
that time Orchidists used to make pilgrimages to Burford to see the one 
remaining little plant that the country contained, and the record of that 
plant at Kew ‘‘ three feet across” used to provoke a smile of incredulity, 
which really was not surprising, all things considered. We also had the 
story of how one plant was killed by the attempt to make it bear 2 capsule. 
But the new plants seem to be made of sterner stuff, for some of them have 
borne capsules, just like any other Orchid, and made no fuss about it. I 
wonder whether we have any seedlings yet from the new batch. Judging 
by its past reputation there should bea great development in this direction 
in a few years time, 
A note at page 335 reminds me of another “lost Orchid.” A good 
many of us remember the sensational re-discovery of the old autumn- 
flowering Cattleya labiata some seventeen years ago, and the amount of 
controversy which it called forth. The very first volume of this work 
contained an interesting history of the species (pp. 329-331), giving detailed 
information of how Gardner recorded collecting it near Rio in 1836, and 
how some five years later he also met with it at the little hamlet of 
Sapucaya, on the banks of the Rio Parahyba. There were even ‘“ dried 
specimens” from the former locality. It may also be remembered that at 
that time the habitat of Swainson’s plant was not known, though the 
subsequent discovery of a paper by him in the Edinburgh Philosophical 
Journal, taken in conjunction with other records, proved that the original 
locality, like the modern one, was Pernambuco (See 0.2. vili. pp. 362-365). 
And now we find Gardner’s records to be erroneous, oF rather based upon 
353 
