CATTLEYA LABIATA 



primarii sphacela 



Bulbi fasciculati, epigcei, oblongi, suboctogoni, vestig: 

 atro-viridia, rubro marginata, ascendentia. Spatha duplex ; 



minor. Scapus I— 2-florus, intra spatham inclusus, teres, glaber. Flores resupinati, suavh 

 lata, acuminata, interiores patentes, ovato-lanceolatae, margine crispae, exterioribus multot 

 hmbi margine eroso, undulate, intus pulcherrime luteo et rubro venosum, versus apicem 

 clavata, alba, ultra cardinem anthers postice in apiculo in antheram incumbente elongata, 

 undulatis, completis ; in singulo loculo jacet massa pollinis una, lenticularis, coriacea, integr 

 drio incumbens. Gynizus cavus, secernens, apice retuso, luteolo, deorsui 

 subulatus enervis, versus apicem luteolum tendens. 



CATTLEYA labiata, Lindl. Collect. Bot. (1821), 

 XXII. (1836), t. 1859; Paxt. Mag. Bot, IV. (1838), p. 1 

 10; Paxt. Fl. Gard, I., p. 117, t. 24; 



iti. Folia solitaria, lanceolata, retusa, plana, cartilaginea, enervia, 

 longitudine, acinaciformis, hinc fissa, colorata ; interior multoties 

 me lilacini, odori. Perianthii patentis laciniae 3 exteriores lanceo- 

 ; latiores. Labellum obovatum, cucullatum, carnosum, porrectum, 

 itense purpureum. Columna directione labclli, libera, semitcres, 

 itice bicornis. Anthera gibba, 4 — locularis, septis membranaceis, 

 , coriacea, integra, per processum filiformem, granulatum, in ipsa deflexum in clinan- 

 flexo ad antheram recipiendam. Raro e basi anteriore gynizi producitur processus 



Lindley. 

 ; Hook. Exot. Fl, II. (1824), t. 157; Lodd. Bot. Cab, XX. (1833), t. 1956; Lindl. Bot. Reg, 

 m tab.; Bot. Mag. (1843), t. 399§ I Hook. Cent. Orch, t. 28; Gardner Travels in Brazil, ed. 2, 

 Jenn. Orch, t. 45 ; Warn. & Will. Orchid Album, II, t. 88 ; 



Gard. 



• 366, 452 



Veitch Man. Orch, pt. 2, p. 14, cum xyl.; Lindenia, III, p. 35, t. 112 (var. autumnalisj; Rolfe i 

 Epidendrum LABIATUM, Rchb. f. in Walp. Ann, VI, p. 313 ; Fl. des Serres, t. 1895. 



CATTLEYA LABIATA var. Warocqueana, Rolfe in Gard. Chron, 1890, pt. 1, p. 735 ; id, 1891, pt. 2, p. 482. 



This magnificent orchid was originally introduced from the immediate neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro by Mr. William Swainson and flowered for 



the first time in Europe in the stove of William Cattley, Esq, of Barnet, during November, 1818. It was described and figured by Lindley in his 



Collectanea Botamca, the genus being dedicated to Mr. Cattley. Thus it is the original species of the genus, though the Epidendrum violaceum of Loddiges was 



1 8 19 it flowered in the Glasgow Botanic Garden, and again in November, 1824, when a coloured plate was 



learn that this very plant was an offset from Mr. Cattley 's parent plant. The precise locality where it was 



vhich are sufficiently conclusive. One is that Svvainson's collections were made in the immediate neighbour- 



) as 1836 the plant grew wild in two localities within fifteen miles of that city. These were the Gavea, or 



levation, and the Pedra Bonita Mountain, immediately opposite the Gavea, on 



November, 1836, and secured specimens for drying, and also abundance 



and in the British Museum. The latter I have not been able to trace, 



added, as a second species, at the same time. 1 

 prepared for the Exotic Flora, from which work 

 collected was not stated, but two facts are knowi 

 hood of Rio ; the other that until as late (at lee 

 Topsail Mountain, where it grew on precipitous 

 the edge of a precipice on the e 

 of living plants. The former w 



though it seems probable they 



(really C. Harrisoniana, Batem 



such collections as then existed, for in 183 



reasonable cost." I believe all the plants 



iveral hundred feet 1 

 :rn side. Here Gardner met with it in full flower i 

 distributed, and good specimens exist, both at Ke 



plants did not long survive the 

 on record by Gardner. Only a 

 cut down and converted into cl 



ere despatched to Europe, for Gardner sent home some living plants, one being the Cattleya intermedia variegata, of Hooke 



figured in the Botanical Magazine, t. 4085, in 1844. Until about this time, however, it appears to have been fairly common ir 



we read in Paxton's Magazine of Botany that " plants may be had from Messrs. Loddiges, Rollisson, or Knight at 1 



nported up to the date in question came from this locality close to Rio. After it was exterminated there it soor 



doubtless 

 they rec 

 fter he first met with it 

 nd the small shrubs, 



twenty miles around Rio that many of the species which still exist will, in 



times will look in vain for the plants collected by their predecessors." Gardi 



forms the boundary of the provinces of Rio de Janeiro and Minas Geraes, flowerin 



not see why. No specimen was preserved. Even here Gardner records that sq 



for plantations of coffee. We now come to the period of its re-introduction— for there 



in search of the plant, and as all proved unsuccessful it was feared that it had become 



Curator of the Zoological Gardens, London, which he disposed of to Mr. B. S. William; 



importation from some part of Brazil. The following year Messrs. Linden, of Brussel: 



name of C. Warocqueana, but which has proved to be C. labiata. During the present au 



Albans, who had despatched a collector some months previously in search of the long-lost plani 



that it should so long have eluded the different collectors who have been in search of it. It i 



than at present, and that the locality close to Rio, whence the 



locality, by the burning of the forest for coffee planting, and cu! 



tions have also proved it to be very variable, but a comparison of old figures shows that th 



description at the head of this article is Lindley 's original one, though th 



:o the fact that the cultivation of Cattleyas was then very imperfectly understood, and many of the 



The circumstances attending its extermination can readily be understood from what has been placed 



he again visited the spot, and found that a great change had taken place. The forest had been 



kc, destroyed by fire. " The progress of cultivation," he remarks, " is proceeding so rapidly for 



course of a few years, be completely annihilated, and the botanists of future 



also records finding Cattleya labiata on the banks of the Rio Parahyba, which 



in March. This has been supposed to be the variety Warneri, though I do 



leagues of the forest were being cut down or burned in order to make room 



> a gap of about forty years during which many expeditions were sent 



xtinct. In 1882 a small batch of plants were received by Mr. Bartlett, 



of Upper Holloway. In 1889 M. E. Moreau, of Paris, received a small 



mported a Cattleya from Brazil, which they distributed under the 



nn it has been imported in bulk by Messrs. F. Sander & Co, of St. 



wed in the light of recent events it is, indeed, remarkable 



clear that the species was formerly more widely diffused 



ier specimens were obtained, was an outlying station. When it was exterminated in this 



«••"" generally, it soon became excessively rare in European collections. Recent importa- 



ire of the species. I may add that the 



lly from thrt 



ll. .M.-l.-.j 



R. A. Rolfe. 



This historical and glorious Cattleya was discovered by Mr. Wm Swainson, while collecting natural history specimens 

 in the Brazils. In Hooker's Exotic Flora, vol. 2, t. 157, a coloured plate of Cattleya labiata appears with the accompanying 

 note, evidently written by Mr. Cattley himself, in whose honour the plant had been named by Dr. Lindley :— "The most 

 splendid, perhaps, of all orchideous plants, which blossomed for the first time in the stove of my garden at Barnet during 

 1818, the plant having been sent to me by Mr. William Swainson during his visit to Brazil." A year later it flowered in 

 the Glasgow Botanic Garden ;— this is established by the dried flower in Sir W. Hooker's herbarium now at Kew. The 



