39 
PL. CCLXXXI. 
CYPRIPEDIUM STONEI hook. 
M r STONE’S CYPRIPEDIUM. 
CYPRIPEDIUM. Vide supra, p. 31. 
C. Stonei Low ex Hook. Bot. Mag., t. 5349. — Flore des Serres , t. 1792-3. — III. Hort., X, t. 355. — 
Warn. et Will. Orchid Album, I, t. 8. 
ypripedium Stonei made its first appearance in 1860, in an importation 
received by Messrs Hugh Low et C°, from Sarawak, in the Island of 
Bornéo. According to the Flore des Serres of the regretted Van Houtte, 
this firm of horticulturists found it growing together with C. Lowii , which they 
received for many years from the same région ; yet the breadth of the îeaves and 
the different habit served to attract their attention among the little batch of newly 
imported plants, and the following year revealed an incomparable treasure. It 
was in 1861 in the collection of M r John Day, of Tottenham, that it actually 
flowered for the first time in Europe, but as this gentleman’s name was already 
represented in the genus by another species, in the person of Cypripedium 
Dayanum , it was in honour of his gardener, M r Stone, that the plant which has 
acquired so great a celebrity was named. 
For many years it continued rare in cultivation, but through later impor¬ 
tations it ultimately became more abundant. Nevertheless strong examples of 
C. Stonei , even at the présent day, are few in number. 
The circumstance which served to augment the high favour with which the 
new species was received, was the appearance, a few years later, of a variety 
distinctly superior to the type, the variety platytoenium , which, notwithstanding 
its extreme rarity, promptly acquired the name of the “ King of Cypripediums. ” 
This variety, imported under the same conditions and from the same locality 
as the original plants, was also acquired by M r Day. It flowered for the first 
time in 1867. Some rare examples were obtained by division, and passed into 
the collections of the principle amateurs of this epoch. The two strongest 
preserved by M r Day were, at his death, included in the sale of his collection, 
and acquired by two celebrated English amateurs, Sir Trevor Lawrence and 
Baron Schroder. No other plant has ever been imported. 
There exist, however, other beautiful varieties of C. Stonei; among them 
we may mention the one which we hâve had painted for the Lindenia , and which 
is well known to ail the continental Orchid growers under the name of C. Stonei 
Cannartae. It belonged to the collection formed with so much taste and dévotion 
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