THE ORCHID REVIEW. 299 
CATTLEYA WARSCEWICZII. 
SEVERAL inquiries have reached us respecting this splendid Cattleya and its 
varieties, from which it is evident that much uncertainty exists respecting 
it, and therefore the following notes may be acceptable. It was originally 
discovered about the year 1848 or 1849, by Warscewicz, in the province of 
Medellin, New Granada; and in 1854 was fully described, from dried 
specimens and drawings, as Cattleya Warscewiczii (Bonplandia, ii. p. 112), 
being named by Reichenbach in honour of its discoverer. A magnificent 
four-flowered raceme and coloured drawing also came into the hands of Dr. 
Lindley. Immediately afterwards Reichenbach figured it in his Xema 
‘Orchidacea (i. p. 78, t. 31), but, unfortunately, in the text he confounded it 
with C. Trianz, to which species the living plants mentioned evidently 
belong. The greater part of Warscewicz’s collection was unfortunately 
lost, by the breaking down of the vessel in which it was being conveyed 
down the river Magdalena, and the few plants that were saved subsequently 
died. 
For a long time afterwards the species seems to have been almost lost 
sight of, but in 1868 it was re-discovered by M. Gustav Wallis, when travelling 
from Medellin to Frontino, and plants were sent to M. Linden, of Brussels. 
Wallis records its habitat (Gard. Chron., 1875, i. p. 171), as inthe immediate 
vicinity of the little town of Frontino, in the state of Antioquia, at about 
4,000 feet elevation, where it grows in thick forests, and also in the tops of 
high trees, the best-flowered plants being found in rather shady situations. 
It flowered, doubtless for the first time in Europe, in M. Linden’s establish- 
ment in 1873, and received the name of Cattleya gigas, Linden (Ill. Hort., 
Xx. p. 70), a figure being subsequently published (/.c., xxi. p. 122, t. 178). 
Published statements with regard to the origin of C. gigas are conflict- 
ing. Wallis, who complained that his merits as discoverer had been 
ignored, affirms that he sent plants from Frontino to M. Linden, while 
others say that Roezl obtained it from Medellin, whence Warscewicz’s 
original specimens were obtained. Wallis himself throws some light on the 
point, for he states that in 1871 Roezl was sent to collect plants on behalf 
of M. Linden, and that many of them were obtained at Amalfi (north of 
Medellin), more than eighty miles from Frontino, on the other side of the 
Cauca valley, where he himself had collected them, and that he was doubtful 
if they were the true C. gigas, as he considered them different from the 
Frontino plant. He further states that three times he sent plants to M. 
Linden and Messrs. Veitch, of Chelsea. 
The Frontino plant subsequently received the name of C. imperialis in 
gardens, and was said to grow and flower very freely, while the Medellin 
one had the character of being so shy a bloomer that the locality had been 
all but abandoned by collectors. 
