Aut;usl, Kj'S-l 



'IHI'; ORCilll) WORLD. 



259 



MASDEVALLIA 

 RACEMOSA. 



Tlllb charminy plant was 

 oriy,inally discovered in 

 Columbia by Hartwey;, iioni 

 whose herbarium si)ecimens it was 

 named and described by Lindley in 

 1839. Many years later it was 

 "gathered by Cross at Pilayo, near 

 Popayan, whose name thence became 

 attached to the plant, although he 

 failed to send home living plants to 

 Europe, as did other collectors after 

 luin, it being, it is said, one of the 

 worst of Masdevallias to travel. Its 

 introduction to gardens is due to John 

 ("arder, who succeeded in sending a 

 small consignment of living plants in 

 the year 1883. These were gathered 

 on the Cordillera, between Popayan 

 and Tolima. 



This distinct species of the genus 

 has erect stems, 2-3 inches high, 

 produced from a creeping rhizome. 

 Leaves 2-4 inches long. Scape 

 10- IS inches long, racemose, 8-15 

 flowered. Flowers brilliant orange- 

 red shaded with crimson, sometimes 

 paler approaching yellow ; lateral 

 sepals with three longitudinal veins 

 that are deeper in colour than the 

 intervening surface ; petals and hp 

 minute, whitish, the former oval- 

 oblong, the latter linear-oblong. 

 The lateral sepals are destitute of 

 tails. 



The structure of the flowers of 

 Masdevallia presents a curious 

 anomaly when compared with that of 

 the flowers of many of the genera 

 that find favour with amateurs, such 

 as Cattleya, Dendrobium, many 

 Odontoglossums and Oncidiums, 

 in which the lip is often enormously 

 developed, apparently at the expense of the 

 other floral segments, and it is also the most 

 richly coloured of all the segments. In 

 Masdevallia, on the contrary, the lower whorl 

 of floral segments — the sepals as they are 



etc., 



Masdevallia racemosa. 



conventionalK' called are the most developed 

 and the most richly coloured parts of the 

 flower, this development being, no doubt, at 

 the expense of the petals and hp, which are 

 reduced to minute organs that have but an 

 insignificant influence on the aspect of the 

 flower. 



