77 
purchased by Mr. Holford of Messrs. Rollissons of Tooting as 
Cycnoches ventricosum. 
Here it will be seen 
that fig. 2. is nearly 
Cycnoches ventricosum, 
but its lip is here and 
there raised into warts, 
which are the begin- 
ning of the lobes of 
C. Egertonianum , and 
moreover some of the 
dark purple of the 
latter is appearing at 
the base of the column 
and the tips of the 
sepals. At fig. 3. the 
purple of Egertonia- 
num is displacing the 
green of ventricosum , 
the sepals are rolling 
back, and the label- 
lum is almost wholly 
•/ 
changed, but the sepals 
are still those of C. 
ventricosum. At fig. 4. 
and 5. the transforma- 
tion is complete. 
Another curious 
point in this instance 
is that the transforma- 
tions occur in no cer- 
tain order. The lowest 
flower on the spike. 
No. 1, is more Egertonianum than ventricosum ; the next above 
it, No. 2, is almost wholly ventricosum ; that which succeeds, 
No. 3, is more ventricosum than Egertonianum ; and 4 and 5, 
the last on the spike, are wholly Egertonianum. 
What with such cases as this, the Dean of Manchester’s 
Narcissi, and the singular hybrids with which botanists 
are becoming familiar, all ideas of species and stability of 
structure in the vegetable kingdom, are shaken to their 
foundation. 
