LYCASTE SKINNERI. 
(Mr. Skinner's I.jcaste.) 
Class. 
GYNANDRIA. 
Order. 
MONANDRIA. 
Natural Order. 
ORCHIDACEiE. 
Generic Character.— J'Zowr* ringent ; petals often 
dissimilar, prolonged into a short, chin-like projection. 
Labellum with a transverse fleshy appendage in the 
middle, entire or emarginate. Columji elongated, semi- 
cylindrical, often hairy. Pollen masses four, adnate to 
a narrow elongated caudicula ; gland small, roundish ; 
beak awl-shaped. 
Specific Character.— Plant an epiphyte. Pseudo- 
bulbs roundish, ovate, three-leaved. Leaves lanceolate, 
acute, plaited. Scape loose, sheathed, ascending. 
Bracts herbaceous, acute, cucullate. Sepals spreading, 
oblong-lanceolate, acute. Petals only half the length 
of the sepals, oval, erect, folding above the column, 
reflexed at the summit. Labellum tlu-ee-lobed ; lateral 
lobes erect, truncate, middle one larger, ovately-round- 
ish, deflexed ; with a fleshy, tongue-shaped appendage 
situated between the lateral lobes. Column pubescent 
beneath. 
Lycaste is the name of a new genus, which has been separated from the old 
group Maxillaria^ and includes the well-known and delightful M. aromatica^ with 
M. macropJiylla^ M. cruenfa, and several others. The plant before us is, indeed, 
generally called Maocillaria Skinneri; but it is now classed by Dr. Lindley among 
the species of Lycaste. 
L. Skinneri is happily designated by Mr. Bateman as the facile princeps of 
all known Maxillarias. " It has at length," says that gentleman, writing in the 
Miscellany of the Botanical Register for 1842, " flowered in the collection of the 
Rev. John Clowes, with a vigour and beauty that could not be exceeded in its 
native haunts. The flowers actually measure upwards of six inches across, from 
the tips of the lateral sepals, while the latter are nearly an inch and a half wide in 
the broadest part. The colours of the flowers are peculiarly delicate, the sepals 
being pure white, faintly tinged with crimson at the base ; — the petals of a more 
rosy hue, while the tip is almost covered with spots and streaks of the most 
brilliant carmine. The column, again, is pure white at the apex, and mottled with 
crimson spots at the base ; while a number of woolly hairs are scattered on its 
under side. The habit of the plant is stately, and its growth free and vigorous, 
more nearly resembling Lycaste Deppii, than any other species." 
To this good description it is unnecessary to add more, than that there appears 
to be two or three varieties of the plant, differing slightly in the size and colouring 
VOL. XI. NO. CXXI. B 
