THE ORCHID REVIEW. $7 
and nearly all new!! Among them Loddiges’ Cycnoches, in perfection. 
‘Here came a rude sketch.] Nearly twenty such flowers!’ This nearly 
drove me mad, and if Lance had not given me a living plant, I don’t know 
what would have become of me! Loddiges’ plant, as figured in the Botanical 
Cabinet, produced only two flowers. I was more fortunate, and after twelve 
months’ cultivation a flower scape bearing at least a dozen flowers made its 
appearance in the same house that some twenty years later was startled by 
the apparition of C. ventricosum and C. Egertonianum on the same stem ! 
‘C. Loddigesii, however, never played any tricks at Knypersley. The twelve- 
flowered spike I regarded as a prodigy in itself, and succeeded in drying it 
perfectly. If you live thirty years (is not that the period during which 
Reichenbach’s Herbarium is to remain sealed?) you may yet see this 
specimen, for I gave it to Reichenbach when he called at my house in 
London shortly after Lindley’s death. Little did I then think that I should 
never see him again. You must kindly pardon all this garrulity in an 
octogenarian. I need scarcely say that if there be anything in my former 
letter or in this that you can utilise in any way it is entirely at your 
service.” 
The remarks on Cycnoches are too long for reproduction, but a few 
extracts will supplement the account already given in the Review (iil., pp. 
233-236). Speaking of plate 5, he remarks:—‘‘ The pseudobulb which 
carried the capsule was all that came in the box, which I unpacked myself in 
the West India Docks early in June, 1836. I sent it down to Knypersley at 
once—my Orchid houses were furnaces then—and in the autumn it flowered 
as represented. No more plants of C. ventricosum were received until two 
years later, and then came as what ought to have been C. Egertonianum. 
And now we will pass on to plate 40, where both the mysterious racemes 
are shown as proceeding from the same pseudobulb, though, as you rightly 
remark, ‘ it is clear they were not borne simultaneously.’ But they followed 
each other after a short respite—I believe, in about three weeks—and I can 
positively assure you that they were watched as carefully as the Koh-i-noor 
itself. Never a day passed without my inspecting them. As to the withered 
flowers, they remained many months on the plant, and were seen by many 
people, including Sir P. Egerton, after whom the species was called.” 
These reminiscences are extremely interesting, and if we carry ourselves 
back fora moment to the period in question, when nothing was known 
about the difference between the sexes in this group of Orchids, we can 
easily understand the astonishment with which the production of two such 
very different kinds of flowers on the same pseudobulb was regarded. 
R. A. ROLFE. 
