298 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [OcroBER, 19¢8. 
still hanging to the stem,” probably much withered, when the purple ones 
appeared) with the help of an earlier drawing. Incidentally it may also be 
remarked that the camera and the artist have preserved quite different im- 
pressions of the male inflorescence, which we have seen alive several times, 
and when dried have been able to compare with those which appeared over 
half a century ago, and thus can confirm their absolute identity. The- 
present figure also confirms the record made in 1895 of the production of 
male and female inflorescences on two plants at Kew which were originally 
parts of a single one (O.R., iii. p. 233). And since the present figure was 
prepared Messrs. Charlesworth have informed us that this autumn a plant 
in their establishment has produced the purple male flowers and the green 
female flowers on either sides of the same pseudobulb, at the same time, a 
very interesting occurrence. 
It is very curious that the mistake should have remained undetected for 
so long a period, especially in view of the following note by Dr. Lindley, 
which appeared about the end of 1843 (Bot. Reg., xxix., Misc. p. 77, with 
fig.) :—‘‘ On the 15th of September last, I received from Robert Steyner 
Holford, Esq., of Westonbirt, near Tetbury, in Gloucestershire, a flower-spike 
bearing flowers of Cycnoches ventricosum and C. Egertonianum intermixed ; 
it was exhibited at a meeting of the Horticultural Society, and I now 
produce a figure of it. The plant which bore this specimen had been pur- 
chased by Mr. Holford of Messrs. Rollissons, of Tooting, as Cycnoches 
ventricosum. Here it will be seen that fig. 2 is nearly Cycnoches ventri- 
cosum, but its lip is here and there raised into warts, which are the 
beginning of the lobes of C. Egertonianum, and moreover some of the dark 
purple of the latter is appearing at the base of the column and the tips of 
the sepals. At fig. 3 the purple of Egertonianum is displacing the green of 
ventricosum, the sepals are rolling back, and the labellum is almost wholly 
changed, but the sepals are still those of C. ventricosum. At figs. 4 and 5 
the transformation is complete. Another curious point in this instance is 
that the transformations occur in no certain order. The lowest flower on 
the spike, No. 1, is more Egertonianum than ventricosum, the next above 
it, No. 2, is almost wholly ventricosum ; that which succeeds, No. 3, is more 
ventricosum than Egertonianum ; and 4 and 5, the last on the spike, are 
wholly Egertonianum.” Instead of C. ventricosum we must now say the 
female of C. Egertonianum, and then we can understand this remarkable 
inflorescence. 
Had it been understood at the time that the two kinds of flowers were of 
different sexes it is possible that C. ventricosum and C. Egertonianum 
would never have been confused at all, though they appear to grow in the 
same district, and sometimes intermixed. It may be added that C. ventri- 
cosum belongs to the section Eucycnoches, and is nearly allied to C. chloro-- 
