PL. CCLXV. 
CATTLEYA REX o’brien. 
CATTLEYA “ THE KING. ” 
CATTLEYA. Perigonii foliola exteriora membranacea vel carnosa patentia aequalia, interiora saepius majora. 
Labellum basi columnae affixum cucullatum integrum vel trilobum, columnam involvens. Columna clavata elongata 
semiteres exalata. Anthera quadrilocularis, carnosa, septorum marginibus membranaceis. Pollinia quatuor cauliculis 
totidem replicatis. 
Herbae americanae tropicae epiphytae pseudobulbiferae, foliis solitariis geminisve coriaceis, floribus termina- 
Iibus magnis speciosis saepe e spatha magna erumpentibus. 
Lindl., Coll. Bot., t. 33; Id., Gen. & Sfi. Orch. PI., p. 116. — Benth. et Hook f., Gen. PI. III, p. 531. 
C. Rex, Q’Brien in Gard. Chron., 1890, pt. 2, p. 684. 
his is a striking example of the considérable difficulties which sometimes 
attend the introduction of new Orchids. The Cattleya of which we give 
to-day the représentation has been known to M. J. Linden for fifty years, 
but it was only at the end of last year that it was sent to Europe. 
Originally discovered by M. J. Linden during his travels in South-America, 
it was met with again, thirty years îater, by Wallis, who proclaimed it the most 
beautiful of Cattleyas, but he did not succeed in sending living plants to Europe. 
Twenty years after this second discovery, one of the collectors which M. Linden 
had sent to search for it diligently, succeeded at last in obtaining it, and sent 
some plants in good condition to Brussels. 
The great difficulty of this search arose especially from the fact, that the 
plant has not, as hâve Orchids in general, a central district, a place where it may 
be found in quantity. Also one of the collectors of Messrs Linden spent a whole 
year in the same locality (which it is not yet possible for us to divulge), without 
seeing or collecting more than thirty plants of this Cattleya during this long period. 
The country in which it grows, is, moreover, one of the least accessible in 
South-America, and the journey across the mountains, among rugged rocks, 
sometimes eut naturally in nearly vertical steps, without even an indicated path, 
without any base of operations, in the midst of difficulties without number, 
entail the loss of considérable time, and frequently the life of the plants collected 
with so much trouble. One can form an idea of the difficulties encountered when 
it is stated that not only the plants but also the collectors themselves hâve to 
be carried for several days on the backs of the Indians. 
These persistent efforts were amply compensated for when one of the plants 
imported produced in December last a raceme of its splendid flowers, of which 
we now publish a représentation. Seldom has the appearance of a new Orchid 
