304 THE ORCHID REVIEW 
WARSCEWICZELLA AMAZONICA. 
Another of Warscewicz’s long-lost species has come to light, and a 
very handsome one too. It is the old Warscewiczella amazonica which 
was described as long ago as 1854, from a specimen collected near the 
sources of the River Marafion on the Upper Amazon, by Warscewicz, in 
May, 1853. It was described as having flowers twice as large as those of 
W. discolor, and snow white with some red veins in the middle of the lip. 
Then comes a long blank of nearly forty years, during which period nothing 
further seems to have come to light respecting it. In 1892, however, a 
plant flowered with Messrs. Linden, L’ Horticulture Internationale, Brussels, 
to which a First-class Certificate was awarded by the Royal Horticultural 
Society under the name of Warsewiczella Lindeni. It is hardly necessary 
to add that nothing was stated about its origin, either then or afterwards 
when it was figured in the Lindenia. Now, however, plants have been 
obtained by Mr. E. S. Rand, of Para, from the Upper Amazon, which are 
not only identical with the supposed novelty but with the old plant, which, 
as already remarked, has been quite lost sight of Of course the old name 
must now be recognised. It is marvellous that so fine a plant should have 
remained unknown in cultivation for so long a period after its discovery. 
With regard to calling the plant a Zygopetalum a word may be said. It 
was Reichenbach who reduced Warscewiczella and several other genera 
to Zygopetalum, and others have followed him without question, though 
several other genera might also be included on just as good grounds. The 
following are the references to descriptions and figures :— 
Warscewiczella amazonica, Rchb. f. and Warscew. in shcetaren ll, p. 97- 
Zygopetalum amazonicum, Rchb. f. in Walp. Aun., vi. p. 
Warscewiczella Lindeni, “Toit of Hort., 1892, i. pp. 449, i fig. 79. 
Zygopetalum Lindeni, Rolfe in Lindenza, viii. p. 5, t. 337 3 Gard. Chron., 1893, ii. p. 493; 
fig. 85. 
KR. ALR. 
REICHENBACHIAN2%.—“‘ Authors should do more than secure to them- 
‘selves the right of priority . . . by such incomplete diagnoses. Not only 
should a careful description be taken, but great care should be taken to 
-help posterity in discriminating the species. Therefore that specimen, or 
those specimens, which furnished the evidence for the establishment of the 
“species should be distinctly marked as ‘the type of my species.’ I now 
always do this in my collection. I regard this as a fidei commissum for my 
lifetime that will have to be distinctly kept within reach of the men of 
science after my death.”—Reichenbach in Gard. Chron. ny 2079, Te. De JAD 
And yet the man who could write this has sealed up his herbarium for a 
~quarter of a century. 
