﻿October, 1904.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 



specimens in the Munich Herbarium, which had been collected at 

 Teoxomulco, near Oaxaca, S. Mexico, by Count Karwinski. Shortly 

 afterwards he transferred it to Oncidium (Sert. Orch., sub. t. 25), and in 

 1848, on its flowering in cultivation, to Miltonia. It appears to have 

 flowered for the first time in cultivation in August, 1S48, in the collection 

 of the Horticultural Society, at Chiswick, when a description and figure 

 appeared under the heading of " New Plants, etc., from the Society's 

 Garden," under the name of Miltonia Karwinskii (Jottm. Hort. Soc. 

 Loud., iv., p. 83, with fig.). It is said to have been received from Mr. 

 Hartweg, and is supposed to have been collected at Oaxaca, in 1839. 

 Its history is thus given :— " This beautiful plant was originally described 

 from a small dried specimen brought from Mexico by Count Karwinski, 

 and was then referred successively to the genera Cyrtochilum and 

 Oncidium ; it is, however, a true Miltonia, and one of the finest plants 

 in cultivation. Imagine a rod three feet long, stiff, and nearly upright, 

 being covered for three parts of its length, at intervals of an inch and a 

 half, with large gay white purple yellow and brown flowers, fully 2| inches 

 in diameter, and an idea will be formed of this charming species. The 

 sepals and petals are bright yellow, barred and spotted with brown ; the lip 

 is white at the point, deep violet at the base, and blush in the middle 

 space. The column is nearly white, and adorned by two serrated hatchet- 

 shaped win^s. It requires to be treated like an Oncidium, and to be 

 grown in rather a cool temperature, in pots filled with fibry peat and half- 

 decayed leaves, well drained. It is one of the most beautiful and distinct 

 Orchids in cultivation." Shortly afterwards a coloured figure appeared in 

 Paxton's Magazine of Botany (xvi., p. 162, fig. 1). Finally Reichenbach 

 changed the name to Odontoglossum Karwinskii {Bonplandia, 1855, P- 2I 4)- 



It is curious how little further is known about the plant. Reichenbach 

 remarked that he had only seen Karwinski's original specimen {Walp. 

 Ann., vi., p. 842), and Lindley's Herbarium only contains a single flower, 

 apparently from the same source, and a coloured drawing of a single 

 flower from the plant which flowered with the Horticultural Society. 

 Two other specimens afterwards mounted on the same sheet by Lindley 

 belong to Odontoglossum Reichenheimii. Messrs. Veitch make both it 

 and O. Reichenheimii synonymous with O. laeve {Man. Orch., i., p. 42), 

 but the three are quite distinct, though allied species, and this raises 

 the question which genus they should be referred to. 



The fact is the plant belongs to a natural group of five species, two of 

 which are now referred to Miltonia and three to Odontoglossum. The 

 second Miltonia is M. Schrcederiana, which was described by Reichenbach 

 in 1887 as Odontoglossum Schrcederianum (he had previously given the 

 same name to a very different plant), but which was shortly afterwards 



