NEW OR NOTEWORTHY ORCHIDS 
Unfortunately there are perplexing speculations as to 
what constitutes the actual type of Masdevallia Livingstone- 
ana, because there were two importations of the species from 
which Reichenbach might have obtained the material on 
which he relied for amplification of the original description. 
Mr. F. Sander informed R. A. Rolfe that after the sale of the 
first importation (the plants having been distributed simply 
as Masdevallia sp.), Roezl arrived at the old nursery in 
George Street, St. Albans, with living specimens and dried 
flowers. It was at this time that Roezl suggested the name 
Masdevallia Livingstoneana, in honor of Dr. Livingstone, 
whose body had just been brought home by Stanley. Reich¬ 
enbach did not abolish ambiguity as to the material that 
constitutes the type when he attempted to make atonement 
for his ill-advised attempt to establish a new species with an 
incomplete description, for in his notes he failed to assure 
us that the flowers he examined came from specimens col¬ 
lected by Roezl in Panama. He simply reported that the 
fresh flowers came from Baden, where they had appeared 
in the orchid collection of the Prince Egon von Furstenberg. 
In view of the evidence it would seem that the sketch on 
which Reichenbach wrote the first rough draft of the de¬ 
scription which appeared in the 1874 issue of the Gardeners’ 
Chronicle is the actual type of Masdevallia Livingstoneana. 
Although living plants of the species reached England 
it promptly passed into the category of imperfectly known 
orchids. Miss Woolward, in her monograph of Masdevallia, 
referred it to Pleurothallis. Rolfe, in the Orchid Review, 
when he published a reply to enquiries regarding Masdevallia 
Livingstoneana, was unable to furnish a clue as to its identity 
or affinity, notwithstanding his exceptional opportunities for 
dissipating the mists which surrounded many of Reichen- 
bach’s secluded types. 
Dr. Schlechter, in his recent studies of the orchids of 
Panama collected by C. W. Powell, arrived at the conclusion 
that a specimen collected near Arrijan, west of the Canal, 
represented the long-lost Masdevallia. I gave my reasons, 
in Schedulae Orchidianae 4, for taking exception to Dr. 
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