74 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
from a photograph kindly sent by Mr. Mann for the purpose. Those why 
know the species as it generally appears in cultivation will not fail t 
appreciate the beauty of this particular plant, and the evidence of high 
cultural skill it affords on the part of the gardener, Mr. J. Simmon. It bor 
ten drooping racemes, five on one pseudobulb, three on another, and two 
the third, and these together bore no less than 247 flowers, 37 being borne 
on one raceme. Our illustration, though necessarily much reduced, gives? 
graphic idea of its appearance, which no words could convey. The flowers 
are about three inches in diameter; the sepals and petals reflexed, cream 
white, tinged with greenish yellow, and heavily blotched with deep purple 
brown; the erect lip reduced to’ five narrow lobes or fingers (in allusion to 
which the name was given) ; and the column long, slender, and arching, like 
a swan’s neck, | 
The species was described just half a century ago by Dr. Lindley, from & 
seven-flowered raceme sent by Messrs. Veitch, of Exeter (now of Chelsea) 
in March, 1842, and a plant which soon afterwards flowered with Messis. 
Loddiges, of Hackney, which they had received from Brazil. It was 
described with much hesitation, and with the evident suspicion that it 
might be only.a sport from C. maculatum. In fact, Lindley spoke of the 
difficulty of judging what was a species and what a mere sport, ant 
alluded to the Catasetum group as one ‘among which we find the most 
astonishing deviations from ordinary structure, and the most startling 
variations from what appears to be the rule in other parts of the organit 
world. If," he continues, “ we were informed that the camelopard in the 
Zoological Gardens had shortened the vertebre of its neck, till it was ™ 
longer than a cow’s, or that a kangaroo had exchanged its tail for the swit 
of a Shetland pony, a more surprising thing would not be announced that 
those changes with which we are now familiar in this group of Orchidace®- 
All of which now appears very amusing, and indicates how little . 
phenomena observed in other species had been understood. We now know 
that the sexes are borne in different flowers, which are often quite unlike #8 
appearance. 
Until 1889 the female flowers of the present species appear to have been 
unknown, when they suddenly appeared on a plant in the collection of E 
Gotto, Esq., of The Logs, Hampstead Heath, together with the males: 
How diverse are the two sexes may be seen on reference to the figure ? | 
the Gardeners’ Chronicle cited below, where, however, they are represented | 
upside down. It is not at all unlikely that femaies may appear °? the 
eo: plant at a future flowering, in which case we hope to receive furthet 
materials. ae 
The specimen now figured, splendid as it is, does not represent the 
maximum development of the species. Mr. Edward Rand, of Para, Bi 
who takes a special interest in this group of Orchids i cultivates them 
