i 
38 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [FEBRUARY, 1909, 
CATASETUM MACULATUM ¢ AND @. 
THE production of female flowers of Catasetum in cultivation is of compara- 
tively rare occurrence, and it is a curious fact that in many of the species 
this sex is still unknown, hence the interest of the following case. Mr. M. J. 
Pope, gardener to Mrs. B. B. Tuttle, Naugatuck, Conn., U.S.A., writes :— 
** Some time ago I mentioned to you that I had a Catasetum producing an 
inflorescence of female flowers. I send you photographs showing the 
female flowers exact life size, and one picture showing the whole plant 
reduced. Also another picture showing the entire plant and bulb, with a 
raceme of male flowers. I would like you to identify them for me. The 
male flowers are green, suffused with brown on the petals, and the females 
are larger, and of a pea green all over. The small photograph shows them 
life size. The plant came from Central America.” 
The photographs are good, and the male flowers are unmistakably 
those of C. maculatum, one of the two original species of the genus, 
which was described as long ago as 1822 (Kunth. Syn. Pl. Orb. nov., 
i. p. 330), from a plant collected by Humboldt and Bonpland at Turbaco, 
in Colombia. The female flowers have a larger, more globose lip, and 
the sepals and petals are much shorter, broader and more fleshy, while 
the column is very short, stout, and without antenne. The female 
inflorescence shows five flowers and the male eight. Female flowers 
appeared at Kewin 1893 (O.R., 1. pp. 257, 296), and shortly afterwards at the 
Royal Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin. It may be added that several female 
inflorescences of Catasetum have been collected which cannot yet be 
identified, because of the general similarity between them, and the ignorance 
of what the corresponding male flowers are like, and it is to be hoped that 
growers will help to clear up this obscure point in the history of the genus. 
It may be a long time before the female of every species is knowh, but we 
hope that the precedent set by Mr. Pope will not be lost sight of. 
The other species described at the same time as C. maculatum was C. 
macrocarpum, Rich. MSS. (the description not having been published by 
Richard). The specific name was given in allusion to its very large fruits. 
It was shortly afterwards figured by Kunth (Humb. et Bonpl. Nov. Gen. et Sp; 
vii. p. 158, t. 631), and it is interesting to note that one pseudobulb bears an 
inflorescence with an enormous capsule, the other a_ two-flowered 
inflorescence of male flowers. Nothing was then known of the sexuality of 
the flowers in this genus. 
The cause of the erratic appearance of the female flowers is not certainly 
known, but it is generally believed they are chiefly produced when the 
plants are very strong. 
R. A. ROLFE. 
———$4 = 
