243 



THE ORCHID WORLD. 



[Auj^ust, 1912 



Miltonia Phalanopsis alha. 



MiLTONIA Phal.ENOPSIS ALBA. — Con- 

 siderable attention is now being devoted to 

 Miltonias, their large flowers almost equalling 

 the Odontoglossums in gracefulness and 

 utility. A recent and interesting acquisition 

 is M. Phalaenopsis alba which flowered with 

 Messrs. Lager and Hurrell, New Jersey, for 

 the first time in March, igi2; the plant was 

 rather small and only produced two flowers. 

 The labellum of this species is, as is well 

 known, heavily blotched and spotted with 

 crimson-purple, but in the unique alba variety 

 this colour has been entirely eliminated, 

 leaving only a bright yellow blotch and lineal 

 markings. The other portions of the flower 

 are pure white. This is probably the first 

 recorded instance of an albino variety of the 

 species. 



^ II g| 



]\IiMiCRV IN Orchid Flowers. — When I 

 was a very young boy I remember seeing a 

 picture of the devil in a book, entitled " A 

 History of His Satanic Majesty." The 



appearance of the devil's face as therein 

 represented has never been quite effaced 

 from my memory. He was represented by a 

 very long chin and beard, an open, ugly 

 mouth, and four horns. You can imagine my 

 surprise the other morning upon finding in 

 my house an Orchid in bloom, Stenia fim- 

 briata, the flower of which bears a striking 

 resemblance to the face of Mephistopheles as 

 represented in the book referred to. Many 

 of my friends who have seen the flower have 

 been highly amused with the supposed like- 

 ness to the " Old Gentleman." — Alex. 

 Paterson, 77/l' Garden, Sept. 2yd, 1SS2. 

 % ^ ^ 



Cattleya Mossi.e albinos. — Reichen- 

 bach, in 1856, described in "Bonplandia" a 

 form of Cattleya Mossije having pure white 

 sepals and petals and an ameth\st-purple 

 labellum, this he named Reineckiana, m 

 honour of Reinecke, gardener to Herr Decker, 

 in whose collection the plant first flowered. 

 He also described and figured in " Xenia 

 Orchidacea " a pure white variet)', entirel}' 

 devoid of purple pigment, under the name 

 Wagneri, which was discovered by Herr 

 Wagner, in Caracas, May, 1851. To this day 

 Orchid growers have used the two names as 

 a means of distinguishing the two forms of 

 albinism, and although this creates a some- 

 what lengthy form of nomenclature the 

 system certainly assists us in our classifica- 

 tion. From the well-known collection of J. 

 Leemann, Esq., West Bank House, Heaton 

 Mersey, comes Cattleya Mossiae Reineckiana 

 Sheila, without doubt the finest form of this 

 albino. The broad pure white sepals and 

 petals are thick textured and hold themselves 

 in erect style. The labellum is mottled 

 and veined with unusually bright amethyst- 

 purple ; the orange colour in the throat is 

 also very bright. C. M. R. Hard}''s variety 

 does not possess quite such broad segments, 

 and the purple colour on the labellum is 

 inferior to that of the previous variet}". A 

 good form of Cattleya Mossia? Wagneri is 

 also sent from the same collection, the only 

 colour being the orange-yellow m the upper 

 part of the throat. 



