May 21, 1885. ] 
411 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
anyone who staged like him, whether it was a collection of 
Hyacinths, a bank of Azaleas, or a box of Roses. He had the 
most consummate taste, and the best eye for colour of any man 
I ever met. 1 have seen him when some of his men had arranged, 
as they thought, a bank of flowers, coming up, casting his eye 
over them, making a few alterations, and in a few minutes the 
whole aspect of things was changed. He never, too, fumed and 
protested over the decision of judges. Being just and clear in his 
own judgment, he never suspected other people, and when he 
thought that a wrong decision in which he was concerned had 
been made, he would probably say so, but there was an end of 
it; he did not look upon the judges as his enemies, or consider 
himself the most ill-used of men, a martyr to their ignorance. 
_ As a judge he was one of the quickest, and one would have 
said, the most impulsive of men. I have often had the pleasure 
of being associated with him. Quickly he ran his eye over the 
stands or collections. “ That is first, that second, that’s third,” 
he would say in his rapid way. We would say, “ Not so fast! ” 
and would go through them afterwards with him, and I feel 
bound to say that in the vast majority of cases he was right. 
In former years I used to see more of him than I have done 
lately. Amongst his warmest friends were the late John 
Spencer of Bowood, Canon Hole, who had a real love for him, 
the late John Standish of Bagshot, and as I have said, Charles 
Perry; but he wa3 friendly with everybody. And now we shall 
see him no more! His work, good horticultural work, remains; 
his devoted and excellent wife survives him, and his two sons, 
Harry and Arthur, have already attained much of their father's 
popularity, and are widely known and esteemed Let us hope 
that in their hands Slough will still be a household word, and 
the name of Turner long identified with it.—D., Deal. 
ORCHID MYSTERIES. 
Perhaps in no members of the vegetable kingdom is the 
remarkable phenomenon of heteromorphism, or the production 
of diversely formed flowers upon the same plant, more distinctly 
exhibited than in the two peculiar and interesting genera of 
Orchids, Catasetum and Cycnoches. Observers have from time 
to time recorded the appearance in some species (chiefly 
Catasetums) of certain strange departures from the typical 
structure of the floral organs accompanied by the normal flowers 
of the species and several intermediate forms, all of which weT 3 
in some instances borne upon the same inflorescence. The first 
who recorded one of these extraordinary occurrences was Sir R. 
Schomburgk, who contributed to the Linnean Society a paper 
describing an Orchid he had found in Demerara, which bore on 
one spike flowers of what had been supposed to be three distinct 
genera—viz., Catasetum, Monachanthus, and Myanthns. He 
further observed that although the Catasetum produced seeds 
freely, the Monachanthus was uniformly sterile. This account 
was published in the Linnean Society’s Tranactions (vol. xvii.) 
and attracted the attention of botanists and naturalists gene¬ 
rally, but from its singularity was received by many somewhat 
incredulously. However, m November, 1836, a plant of Myanthus 
cristatus in the garden of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, 
also produced flowers of Monachanthus and Catasetum, similar 
to the plant described by Sir R. Schomburgk. This specimen 
was figured in the “Botanical Register,” vol. xxiii., and proved 
beyond all doubt the correctness of what had been previously 
written concerning the vaiuability of the flowers. Dr. Lindley, 
in commenting upon the plant, mentions how he first assigned 
these forms to three genera, distinguishing Myanthus from 
Catasetum by the deeply fringed or crested labellum, and 
Monachanthus from both the others, by the absence of cirrhi 
or feelers from the column, and he further remarks in extenu¬ 
ation of this decision, “ Nor do I think that as a botanist I 
could be blamed for these errors, the genera being founded upon 
characters which no one could, d priori, have suspected could 
pass into each other in the manner that has now been seen.” 
Many other similar specimens have since been noted, and the 
two pseudo genera Monachanthus and Myanthus are now merged 
in Catasetum. 
The other heteromorphic genus, Cycnoches, is similar in 
habit to Catasetum, its most marked characteristic being the 
long, slender, and gracefully arched column which suggested 
the name, Cycnoches signifying “swan-neck.” Only two forms 
of flowers have been observed to occur on single plants of this 
genus, and these are usually borne upon two distinct racemes 
produced from opposite sides of the stem. In 1836 Dr. Lindley 
received from a gentleman in Birmingham a specimen of a 
Cycnoches which differed from the species then known, C Lod- 
digesii, in having a column dilated and hooded at the apex, and 
in being quite devoid of seen 1 '. This he considered a distinct 
species, and accordingly named it C. cucullata, but very shortly 
afterwards he observed in the garden of the Royal Horticultural 
Society a plant bearing two racemes, “ on one were the fragrant 
flowers of C. Loddigesii, and on the other the scentless flowers 
of C cucullata ” 
Well indeed might the same author observe in the “Vege¬ 
table Kingdom,” “ Such cases shake to the foundation our ideas 
of the stability of genera and species, and prepare the mind 
for more startling discoveries than could have been otherwise 
anticipated.” 
Since that time about six or seven so-called species have been 
introduced from tropical America, in many of which a similar 
tendency to produce distinct forms of flowers on the same plant 
has been noticed, and it is thus extremely difficult to define the 
specific characters. Cycnoches Warscewiczii is one of the more 
recent introductions, and a specimen exhibited at one of the 
Royal Horticultural Society’s meetings a few years ago showed 
Fig. 135.—Large Fiowjr of Cycnoches Warscewiczii. 
the dimorphic character extremely well. On one side of the 
plant was a long drooping raceme of numerous small dull yellow 
flowers, with reflexed sepals and petals, a peculiar fringed labellum 
supported on a stalk, and a slender 
arching column. Just above, upon the 
opposite side of the stem, was a short 
raceme of perhaps half a dozen flowers, 
considerably larger in size, of a greenish 
hue, and broad flat sepals and petals, 
a short thick column and a somewhat 
heart-shaped labellum. It appears 
probable that in this case the large 
flower (fig. 105), is the seed-bearing 
form; for the other (fig. 106) although 
it produces pollinia, seems imperfect 
in the ovary, and thus the different 
structures have some bearing upon the 
phenomenon of fertilisation, an ap¬ 
proximation to the monoecious. It is a 
curious fact that while the three species, 
C. ventricosum, C. Loddigesii and 
heterochilon, have flowers similar to 
the large form of C. Warscewiczii—C. pentadactylon, C. aureum, 
C. maculatum, and C. Egertonianum bear flowers resembling the 
small form with a fringed stalked labellum. 
Yanda, a Renanthera Lowii, is also peculiar in this respect. 
It produces several slender pendulous racemes 6 or 8 feet long, 
the majority of the flowers being of a reddish colour, veined 
with yellow, but near the base of the inHorescenpe are two 
flowers quite different in hue, being yellow spotted -with crimson. 
This has probably some bearing upon the fertilisation, but the 
Fig. 106.—Small Flowers of 
Oycnoclies War. cewiczii. 
