INCONSPICUOUS AND RARELY CULTIVATED ORCHIDS. 145 



obtained. So it is with South Africa, which will probably, when the 

 war is over, be the home of many educated British Colonists who could 

 help us in this work, as, without doubt, Africa is far from being exhausted 

 of its novelties. 



As an example of collecting and sending home Orchids by residents 

 in foreign countries, I may here mention the name of Mr. Lehmann, who 

 has during a quarter of a century of travels in the Andes of Colombia 

 and Ecuador sent home, among other treasures, many rare and " incon- 

 spicuous " Orchids, including several genera new to science, such as 

 Sievekingia (Gorgoglossum) and Trevoria, both of which have been fully 

 described in various botanical works. As a genus Trevoria is very 

 characteristic and distinct. Its nearest neighbours are Coryanthes, 

 Schlimia, Stanhopea, and Sievekingia ; but it is distinguishable at first 

 sight from any of them. At the end of 1893 Mr. Lehmann discovered 

 another new genus, which was named Serrastylis modesta by Mr. Rolfe. 

 The Gardeners' Chronicle remarks that this curious Orchid should have 

 escaped detection by the many plant-collectors who have passed over the 

 Cauca seems a singular circumstance, and the fact itself should give hope 

 to the amateurs of novelties who are content with simple beauty and 

 curious structure. The remarkable and pretty Polycycnis Lehmannii , 

 also one of Mr. Lehmann's discoveries, belongs to a genus which consists 

 of a highly curious section of Orchids very seldom met with in cultivation. 

 Polycycnis vittata was the earliest known species, having been described 

 byDr. Lindley in 1841 under the name of Houlletia vittata. But the 

 genus Polycycnis was established by Professor Reichenbach in 1855, the 

 name being derived from ttoXvc and KvKvoq, in allusion to the flowers on the 

 raceme having a slender, gracefully curved column, like the neck of a 

 swan. In fact, the genus is closely allied to Cycnoches, though at present 

 it has not been known to play such a singular freak as the production of 

 sometimes one form of flower, sometimes another different one, occasion- 

 ally developing both forms at once ! Polycycnis has the more general 

 appearance of Gongora than of any other genus, though its free upper 

 sepal readily distinguishes it, in Gongora the upper sepal and column 

 being united for some distance, one appearing to arise from the other. 

 The flowers are numerous, and borne in long, more or less arching, 

 pendulous racemes from the base of the pseudo-bulbs. 



Few groups of plants produce such remarkable and interesting 

 flowers as the quaint Catasetums, Mormodes, Cycnoches, and Coryanthes. 

 Of their curious distinctiveness, the wonderful apparatus of the flowers 

 for securing fertilisation by insect agency, details of structure, cultivation, 

 &c., a great deal may be written. 



Apassing reference may be made to the Columbian Masdevallias (fig. 73), 

 which are now out of fashion, but which for beauty of colour, grace of form, 

 and striking development yield to few genera. Such dwarf -growing species 

 as M. Wageneriana, M. Estradce (fig. 75), M. melaiiopus, M. floribunda, 

 M. hieroglypliica, M. inctitrata, M. O'Brieniana, M. ionocharis, itc, may 

 well be termed "inconspicuous " Orchids^ but when well cultivated they 

 flower freely and form lovely objects. In M. Troglodifes we have 

 a very singular little plant and a profuse bloomer. The column ami 

 lip have a resemblance to a grotesque figure concealed in the cavity 



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