The Orchid Album, Volume 3 / 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 III.
LONDON: Published by B. S. Williams, AT THE VICTORIA AND PARADISE NURSERIES, UPPER HOLLOWAY, N. MDCCCLXXXIV.
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. 97. LÆLIA ELEGANS PRASIATA
Epiphytal. Stems erect, clustered, terete, clavate, jointed, about one and a half foot high. Leaves in pairs at the top of the stems, linear-oblong, obtuse, coriaceous, deep green. Racemes short, erect, six to eight-flowered, issuing from an oblong purplish compressed bract, the peduncles and pedicels green. Flowers large and showy, five inches across; sepals about three inches long, oblanceolate, the edges revolute and the tips recurved, of a light magenta-rose, paler towards the base, having a greenish tint along the centre, and a distinct flush of purple; petals obovate-lanceolate, acute, an inch broad, of a deeper rose than the sepals, and having a flush of green, the margins undulated; lip three-lobed, the lateral lobes elongate, white, rolled over the column, tinted with rose at the edges; and of a bright rosy crimson at the tips; the front lobe an inch and three-fourths in breadth, transversely-reniform, crenate and much undulated at the margin, of a rich magenta-crimson, traversed by veins of deeper crimson, the veins most evident in the centre where the ground colour is paler; disk smooth. Column clavate, marginate, enclosed. Lælia elegans prasiata, Reichenbach fil., in litteris , 1863; Id. Botanische Zeitung , October , 1864; Id. Gardeners’ Chronicle , N.S., xix., 11 (sub-variety).