﻿THE ORCHID REVIEW. 



[May, ,904, 



CYMBID1UM VIRESCENS. 



A curious little Cymbidium has been in flower at Kew for some time 

 which in its single flowered scapes clothed with sheathing bracts resembles 

 a Maxillaria rather than the genus to which it really belongs. It is C. 

 virescens, Lindl., which was described in 1838 {Bot. Reg., xxiv., Misc., p. 

 37). It is a native of Japan, and was brought to Europe by Dr. Siebold, 

 and flowered in Messrs. Rollisson's Nursery at Tooting. Dr. Lindley 

 remarked " It has greenish sepals and petals, about an inch and a half 

 long, and a pale dull yellow lip slightly blotched with dull red. I did not 

 remark any smell. No doubt this will prove a greenhouse species." 

 Curiously enough the plant misled even Reichenbach, who, in 1845, though 

 knowing its Japanese habitat, described it under the name of Maxillaria 

 Goringii (Bot. Zeit., 1845. p. 334), and when afterwards he transferred it to 

 Cymbidium, as C. Goringii, he was evidently unaware that it was Lindley's. 

 plant. Still later he enumerated the two as distinct (Walp. Ann. vi., p. 

 626), at the same time erroneously contracting Lindley's name to C. virens, 

 in which mistake he has been followed by most later authors. There is 

 a figure of it in the Japanese work Somoku Zusetsu, xviii, t. 15). It is found 

 both in Corea and Japan, and will succeed in a cool greenhouse. Though 

 interesting botanically, it is not by any means a showy plant, partly on 

 account of the colour of the flowers, and partly because they are shorter 

 than the leaves, as is also the case with some Maxillarias. There is only 

 one other species having single-flowered scapes, which has been described 

 rather recently, namely, C. Mackinnoni (Duthie in Journ. Asiat.Soc. Beng.> 

 lxxi, p. 41), a native of the Western Himalaya, near Mussouri, growing at 

 about 5500 feet elevation. 



R. A. R. 



ONCIDIUM ANTHOCRENE. 



A fine inflorescence of an Oncidium is sent by Messrs. Lager & HurrelL 

 Summit, New Jersey, which proves to belong to Oncidium anthocrene. 

 The species is a native of Colombia, and was originally discovered at about 

 4,000 feet elevation, by Wallis, and described by Reichenbach in 1877 

 (Linncea, xli., p. 102). Some time later it appeared in cultivation, and was 

 figured in the Orchid Album (ix., t. 392). Messrs. Charlesworth & Co. also 

 obtained it in 1889, from Antioquia, in the Cattleya Dowiana district. It 

 is a striking thing, having a branching inflorescence and numerous flowers, 

 which measure two inches across. Its nearest ally is O. bracteatum, 

 Rchb. f., each of them having a strongly bracteate inflorescence, but in the 

 present one the flowers are nearly double the size. The sepals and petals 



