360 
The Garden Magazine, July, 1924 
crimson; whilst those of M. 
Roeilii are delightfully fra¬ 
grant. 
Very useful plants are the 
Lvcastes and L. Skinner i, 
and its forms rank among 
the finest ornaments of or¬ 
chid houses. The pink to 
white flowers are from 6 to 7 
inches across, the lip is 
3-lobed and variously 
spotted with rose-red or 
crimson. It flowers in the 
winter months and is native 
of Guatemala. 
Panama is the home of 
Peristeria data, the Dove 
Orchid from the resem¬ 
blance of the column of the 
flower to a dove hovering 
with expanded wings some¬ 
what like the conventional 
dove seen in artistic rep¬ 
resentations of the Holy 
Ghost. The flower stems 
are erect, from 3 to 5 ft. 
tall, and bear racemosely 
many white waxy almost 
globose blossoms from July 
to September. 
Very curious is Catase- 
tum with hood-like flowers 
of three different forms 
which sometimes appear on 
the same plant. For a long 
time these forms were re¬ 
garded as belonging to dif¬ 
ferent genera, but it is now 
known that they represent 
merely the male, female, 
and hermaphrodite forms of one genus. The lip is uppermost in the 
flower and the column is provided with a pair of horns or antennae 
which in many species cross one another diagonally. When one of 
these antennae is touched, the pollinia are ejected with great violence. 
Among the best known species are C. macrocarpum, C. tridentatum, 
C. Bungerothii, and C. saccaium. 
Even more remarkable are the flowers of the related genus Stanhopea 
which are borne on pendent racemes, or solitary and hanging. The 
flowers are massive in texture, beautifully barred and spotted with color, 
strongly fragrant. Perhaps the handsomest of all is A. tigrina with 
flowers 8 inches across. The lip and the column form a cage, narrow¬ 
ing toward the mouth and as smooth and slippery as glass. The base 
of the lip is like a bucket and is covered with juicy hairs. Other fine 
species are 5 . IVardii and S. gibbosa, the latter with flowers 6 inches 
across, yellow barred and spotted with crimson. 
Another close relative is Cycnoches, the Swan Orchids of which C. 
pentadadylon may serve as an example. The flowers are racemose of 
two sexes resembling those of Catasetum, greenish-yellow, sometimes 
white, barred and blotched with chocolate brown and the lip in parts 
white spotted with red. The species was introduced in 1841 from Rio 
de Janeiro into England by William Lobb. 
But the most extraordinary of all of this group is Coryanthes, the 
Helmet Orchid, a tropical South American genus of four or five species. 
The flowers are pendulous and wonderful in appearance, not easy to 
describe clearly without figures. The sepals are fairly large, bent 
backward, the petals are small; the lip is of a most complex shape, 
projecting horizontally from the base of the column is a bar bearing a 
dome on the end of which is suspended a bucket-like organ; the 
mouth of the bucket faces upward and the edges are incurved; there 
is also an overflow pipe projecting toward the sepals and closely 
covered in by the bent end of the column with the stigma and anther. 
From the base of the column project two horns which secrete a thin 
watery fluid that drips into the bucket keeping it full to the level of 
the overflow pipe. The dome above the bucket is composed of succu¬ 
lent tissue very attractive to bees who fight for places on it whence 
to drill the tissue; every now and then one of them gets pushed off and 
falls into the bucket. 11 can neither fly nor climb out and has to squeeze 
through the overflow pipe. In so doing the bee passes the stigma 
fertilizing it if it carries any 
pollen, and then passing the 
anther is loaded with new 
pollinia to be transferred to 
other flowers. 
One of the best known 
species is C. macrantha from 
Caracas whose flowers are 
rich yellow dotted with red; 
the hood and part of the 
bucket is brownish red. An¬ 
other is the Venezuelan C. 
maculaia with dull yellow 
flowers, the bucket blotched 
with dull red within. 
Notable and Grotesque 
HE winter-blooming ge¬ 
nus Zygopetalum of 
which some twenty species 
are known, have handsome 
flowers often with a good 
deal of blue in theircoloring. 
Such a species is Z. Mackayi 
with erect racemes from i| 
to 2 ft. tall which bear from 
6 to 10 flowers each with 
purplish brown sepals and 
petals and a flattened 
rounded lip white heavily 
striated with blue. This 
species is a native of Brazil 
and so too is Z. crinitum 
with its bearded lip, Z. 
Gautieri whose lip varies in 
color from rose to blue- 
purple, and several others 
including the well-known 
Z. maxillare. The Mexican 
Chysis bractescens with nod¬ 
ding racemes of thick, fleshy white marked with yellow flowers must not 
be omitted. Its yellow flowered sister C. aurea is Venezuelan. 
A noteworthy Orchid is Schomburgkia tibicinis with horn-shaped 
pseudo-bulbs each i| ft. long and a terminal mass of flowers on a 
stem 5 feet in length. The blossom is about 3 inches across with 
sepals and petals pink, spotted with chocolate, and lip white spotted 
with rose on the lobes which are erect. There are several other species 
and all are fond of sun and strong heat. 
The Masdevallias are a large and varied group though very few 
have conspicuous flowers. A characteristic feature of the genus is 
the drawn-out apex of the 3 sepals which is often decidedly tail-like; 
the petals and lip are usually small. The flowers vary greatly in form 
and many of them are grotesque. Such species as M. coccinea and its va¬ 
riety Harryana, M. Lindenii, M. ignea, M. tovarensis, and M. Veitcbiana 
have erect scapes from 8 to 1 5 inches tall bearing one, rarely two, pleas¬ 
ing flowers. These species are very free-blooming and deservedly popu¬ 
lar. Another section, to which belong M. chimaera, M. bella and M . 
nycterina, have singular flowers, extraordinarily long tails to the sepals, 
and are more or less yellow heavily blotched with purple-brown. 
The tropical American Cypripediums are now referred to the genus 
Phragmopedilum, but here it is convenient to mention them under their 
old and more familiar name. Many of the species have remarkable 
flowers, but none more so than the noble C. caudatum of Peru. I his 
has tufted leaves and from the center of the plant after the leaf growth is 
finished arise flower stems each from 1 to 1J ft. tall. I he lateral petals 
are narrow, tail-like from 2 to 2\ ft. long and pendent, giving the flower 
an extraordinary appearance. The color is yellowish marked with 
brown. With this wonderful Orchid 1 may contrast C. Schlimii with 
its racemose bright rose-colored flowers each 2 inches across with a 
globose pouched lip. 
The sins of omission here are many, as the Orchid enthusiast 
will be quick to note, but no attempt at finality is intended. 
These discursive sketches of a few of the prominent types of a 
wonderfully polymorphic family will have served their purpose 
if they impress upon the minds of readers the debt we owe to 
the tropics of both worlds for the wonderful flowers we know 
as Orchids. 
HYBRID ORCHID OF RARE BEAUTY AND VALUE 
Brassolaelio-Cattleya Jupiter which won the gold medal of the Royal Horticultural Society 
and the silver cup of the Orchid Trade dealers as the most notable plant exhibited at the 
recent exhibition of the American Orchid Society. It is also seen in the bottom of the oval 
in the preceding page, 'the individual flower measured eight inches across and six inches 
in the other direction with the lip expanding three and one-quarter inches. A rare prod¬ 
uct of the hybridists skill; valued at $ 10,000. Flowers white with crimson shaded lip 
