26 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [January, 1906, 
CYPRIPEDIUM FAIRRIEANUM. 
WHERE Is ITs NaTIvE HomE? 
I was very much interested in your articles on the above species and its 
hybrids, which appeared during the early part of the year, in which you 
bravely attempted tosolve its native habitat. In the end we were left to 
choose between Bhotan (Bhutan) and Assam, with a preponderance of 
evidence in favour of the latter. In the light of its rediscovery, the articles 
make interesting re-reading, for now, after most of us have seen the living 
flowers on the re-imported plants, we are still struggling to solve the same 
riddle. Let us make a few logical deductions, and see if we cannot locate 
its native home. 
Your remarks (0. R., xiii., p- 13), that the plant was sent to Europe by 
Simons, who was practising as a Doctor at Nowgong, may have more in it 
than appears on the surface. It is quite conceivable that in his profession 
as Doctor he might be called to comparatively long distances to patients. 
Such journeys northward would take him to the Brahmaputra River, and 
probably across near the borders of south-east Bhotan, and here he would 
in all likelihood find the new C. Fairrieanum, and his scanty visits to that 
region would account for no new importations coming to hand. 
Another important factor in the non-arrival of new plants was that 
about that time, in the early sixties, differences arose between the 
Bhotanese and the Indian Government with the result that the British 
Envoy was bundled out of the country, and since that time, until quite 
recently, Bhotan has been absolutely forbidden to Europeans. The 
coincidence is surely striking. And now let us begin again from another 
place quite 250 miles west of Nowgong. 
When Sir Frank Younghusband conducted his mission through the 
Chumbi Valley and into Thibet, he found it necessary to pass through 
Some portion of Bhotan, and managed to so ingratiate himself with the 
natives that he was introduced to their Ruler, who subsequently lent great 
aid tothe Mission. On the return of the Mission to India this friendship 
was not allowed to drop, and an officer with an envoy, who was sent to 
invest the Ruler with a decoration, was received with much cordiality, and 
given permission to travel where he would. 
To this permission and envoy I have no shadow of doubt that we 
Orchidists owe the very interesting re-discovery of the long lost C. 
Fairrieanum. Mr. Dimmock, in your quotation copied from the Florists 
Exchange, confirms this, when he says that we owe the re-discovery to @ 
British Officer whilst surveying in Bhotan. 
But Bhotan isa large tract of country, 
$ over 200 miles long by 100 miles 
wide, and I think we can narrow the nati 
ve home of C, Fairrieanum to 2 
Oe TS ee ee 
