The variety Macfarlanei has rosy pink sepals; petals of club shape, bowed, crimson, deepening towards the tips. Labellum long, narrow, all crimson of the darkest shade.
Noteworthy is a plant which we may suppose a natural hybrid of L. purpurata with L. elegans, resembling the latter in size, comparatively small, as in its narrow sepals and petals flushed with rose. The lip is very bright and pretty, with large clear yellow throat, ringed with white; the disc, of lively crimson, has a purple margin finely frilled, and a whitish purple patch in front.
Among miscellaneous examples here is a handsome specimen of Cymbidium Devonianum, and a very remarkable hybrid of Catt. Gaskelliana × Catt. Harrisoniae—Mary Measures; rather ghostly but pleasant to look upon. Its colour of sepal and petal is palest mauve, the tube prettily lined and mottled with pale yellow; labellum, gamboge-yellow in the throat, fading towards the edge, and a pale crimson tip.
A STORY OF BRASSAVOLA DIGBYANA
Brassavola Digbyana is a flower for all tastes—large, stately, beautiful, and supremely curious; I use the familiar name, though it should be Laelia Digbyana. Charming are the great sepals and petals, greenish white, around the snowy lip; but why, the thoughtful ask in vain, does that lip ravel out into a massive fringe, branched and interlacing, near an inch wide? The effect is lovely, but the purpose inscrutable. In Dendrobium Brymerianum we find a puzzle exactly similar. But it does not help us to understand. Countless are the species of Dendrobium, many those of Laelia; but in each case no other shows this peculiarity.
Brassavola Digbyana was first sent to Europe in 1845 by the Governor of British Honduras, who named it in honour of his kinsman, Lord Digby. Once only had the plant been received since that time, so far as I can learn, until last year. But the second cargo, in 1879, ‘went a very long way.’ Messrs. Stevens have rarely been so embarrassed with treasures. The history of that prodigious consignment is worth recording.
It was despatched by Messrs. Brown, Ponder, and Co., of Belize, who dealt in mahogany and logwood—do still, I hope. That trade appears to be rather interesting. The merchant keeps a gang of Caribs, who have been in the employment of the firm all their lives perhaps. They go out at the proper season to find and mark the trees; fell them presently and return whilst the timber is drying; or amuse themselves in the bush, hunting and gathering miscellaneous produce. Then they float the raft down to Belize.