P late V.—Fig; 2. .
SOPHRONITIS GRANDIFLORA.
Cattleya coccinea, Botanical Register, folio 1919, in the letter-press.
Epidendre ponceau, Descourtilz s drawings, pi. 10, p. 27.
A most brilliant little epiphyte, found in Brazil by M. Descourtilz, upon the high mountains
that separate the district of Bananal from that of Ilha Grande. It grows there in abundance
upon fallen and decaying trees ; its scentless flowers appear in June.
At first I took it for a species of Cattleya, of which it has all the habit; but upon a more
attentive examination of M. Descourtilz’s description and figure, I have satisfied myself that it is a
distinct genus, differing from Cattleya in having eight pollen-masses, a pseudo-bulb rather than a
stem for the leaves to grow on, and no spathaceous bract within which the flowers are. engendered.
In the number of pollen masses it agrees with Leelia; but that genus is very different in its resupinate
flowers, pseudo-bulbs, and long equitant spathaceous bracts. The original species of Sophronitis
agrees with this in colour, habit, and many other particulars, but it has the petals smaller, not longer,
than the sepals: a circumstance that seems to point to a different order of developement; I am,
however, upon the whole disposed to agree with Mr. Bateman in referring this to the genus
Sophronitis.
M. Descourtilz describes the plant as follows :
*# R oots encrusted together, long, flexuose, dead-white, fixed at the base of a short rhizoma,
which is articulated like the Polypes called Isis, having on the upper part fusiform, long pseudobulbs,
which are. smooth but not shining, and often enveloped in a dry, wrinkled, greyish violet
sheath. Leap solitary, terminal, thick, firm, tongue-shaped, pointed, channelled at the base.
P eduncle simple, cylindrical, twisted, bright green, having at its base abroad sharp bract, and at
its upper end two smaller opposite bracts which form a bifurcation; from their axil springs, a filiform
violet ovary, terminated by a broad flatly expanded flower. F lower with all its parts of a bright
vermilion, red, or orange; the sepals narrow, ovate; the petals much broader, forming lateral
wings; all streaked with deep red longitudinal lines, and having a satiny violet cast externally.
Lip something like the standard of a leguminous plant inverted, clear yellow, with a broad
nasturtium-coloured border and diverging veins of the same colour, cucullate at the base, slightly
3-lobed, with the middle division ovate, obtuse, and much shorter than the sepals. There are many
varieties, passing from yellow-orange to the deepest cinnabar-red, but in all of them the exterior of the
flower is a dead cinnabar-red, with no visible streaks or veins. Column short, triangular,, having two
lateral white dilatations or wings, bordered by bright crimson. Anther convex, greenish, divided
internally into four membranous cells, which are thickest at their upper half, and cover eight clear-
yellow pollen masses, of a triangular form and arranged in two rows.”