The Orchid Album, Volume 2 / Comprising Coloured Figures and Descriptions of New, Rare, and Beautiful Orchidaceous Plants

COMPRISING COLOURED FIGURES AND DESCRIPTIONS OF NEW, RARE, AND BEAUTIFUL ORCHIDACEOUS PLANTS.
CONDUCTED BY ROBERT WARNER, F.L.S., F.R.H.S., Author of SELECT ORCHIDACEOUS PLANTS, AND BENJAMIN SAMUEL WILLIAMS, F.L.S., F.R.H.S., Author of the ORCHID-GROWERS’ MANUAL, etc.
The Botanical Descriptions by THOMAS MOORE, F.L.S., F.R.H.S., CURATOR of the CHELSEA BOTANIC GARDENS.
THE COLOURED FIGURES BY JOHN NUGENT FITCH, F.L.S.
VOLUME II.
LONDON: Published by B. S. Williams, AT THE VICTORIA AND PARADISE NURSERIES, UPPER HOLLOWAY, N. MDCCCLXXXIII.
DEDICATED BY SPECIAL PERMISSION TO H.R.H. The Princess of Wales, BY HER ROYAL HIGHNESS’ Very obedient and humble Servants, ROBERT WARNER, BENJAMIN S. WILLIAMS.
PL. 49. LÆLIA AUTUMNALIS ATRORUBENS.
Epiphytal. Pseudobulbs oblong-ovate, terete, furrowed, bearing two or three leaves at the attenuated apex, and sheathed at the base with large brown imbricated scales. Leaves oblong-linear, spreading, smooth, leathery in texture. Scape terete, issuing from between the leaves, and much longer than them, bearing five or six flowers at the apex, jointed, with sheathing scales at the joints. Flowers large and richly-coloured, much more so than in the typical form, sweet-scented; sepals lanceolate acuminate, spreading, of a brilliant purple-crimson, paler towards the base; petals ovate acuminate, subundulate, of the same colour as the sepals; lip three-lobed, the lateral lobes erect, truncately rounded, white, the middle lobe obovate-oblong, of an intensely brilliant purple-crimson colour, bilamellate on the disk, the apex recurved. Column semicylindrical, decurved, rosy purple. Lælia autumnalis atrorubens, Backhouse , in Gardeners’ Chronicle , N.S., xii., 232.
Mr. Bateman has well observed that “the genus Lælia may be regarded as one of the most ornamental of its tribe, since pleasing colours, graceful habit, long duration, and delicious perfume—in short, all the essentials of floral beauty seem to be combined in its various species.” There is, indeed, no doubt that in this genus some of the most showy of our cultivated Orchids are to be found. There are, moreover, species presenting many different hues, varying from yellow to rich purple, and while some of them produce small flowers, in others they are gigantic in size. The subject of our plate, as will be seen from the figure, is a magnificent Orchid, our drawing of which was taken from a well-managed specimen grown by Mr. Stevens, Gardener to W. Thompson, Esq., The Grange, Walton, Stone, Staffordshire. This particular variety was imported in 1878 by Messrs. James Backhouse & Son, of York, who grow it to great perfection.