[Plate 29.] 



PORTE'S VARIETY OF THE INTERMEDIATE 



BUTTERFLY PLANT. 



(PHAL^ENOPSIS INTERMEDIA, VCIV. PORTEI.^ 



A Magnificent Epiphyte from the Philippines, belonging to the Natural Order of Orchids. 



TO convey a clear idea of what the beautiful plant here figured is, it will be necessary 

 to say a few words about one or two other Phalamopsids. When M. Marius Porte 

 was out in the Philippine Islands, some twenty years ago, he, it appears, discovered a 

 single plant of a Pbalsenopsid, which, on its flowering with Robert Warner, Esq., of 

 Broomfield, was pronounced by Professor iteichenbach to be a natural hybrid between 

 P. Aphrodite (amabilis, Lindl.) and P. equestris, Rchb. (rosea, LindL), and is described 

 by him in the Bot. Zeil., No. 15, 1863, p. 128, as a flower of snowy whiteness, with 

 a purple lip, the centre of which is yellow, as well as the callosity, which is marked 

 by blackish-purple spots; the lateral sepals and petals are free from spots at their base. 

 Since then, more specimens of this Phalsenopsis have reached this country ; recently Messrs. 

 Low & Co., of the Clapton Nursery, have received some, and they sold the plant now 

 figured to W. Lee, Esq., of Downside, Leatherhead, through whose kindness we are enabled 

 to give the illustration. It is a decided improvement, especially in the beautiful deep 

 colour of the markings, on P. intermedia Portei, although evidently only a form of that 

 variety. 



These hybrids, the result of a cross between species when growing wild and out of 

 reach of the cultivator's manipulation, are very interesting. It is not in the intermediate 

 character of the colouring of the flowers alone that their parentage may be traced far 

 enough to be relied on as accurate ; it is more in their formation, partaking as they do 

 of that of the species to which their origin is attributed, as in the case of the plant 

 under notice, which in the individual parts of the flowers, as well as in their being inter- 

 mediate in size between the two species it is referred to, partakes of their joint character. 

 In the whole order of Orchids there is scarcely to be found a more beautiful group than 

 the genus Phalamopsis, their singularly lovely moth-like flowers being as remarkable 



