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Naturally, the stem in this species is globular or slightly egg-shaped, and bears about fourteen ridges, upon which are tufts of short spines, springing from little cushions of whitish wool. The position of the flowers is shown in the figure. The tube is covered with tufts of hair-like spines, and the petals and sepals are broad, spreading, and white, tinged with yellow, as in E. cristata.
A native of Chinese Tartary, and quite hardy. C. LANUGINOSA. China, 1851. A handsome species, with large purple leaves that are hairy on the under sides. Flowers pale blue or lilac, very large, and composed of six or eight spreading sepals. C. lanuginosa pallida has immense flowers, often fully half a foot in diameter. Flowers in June. C. MONTANA. Nepaul, 1831.
The colour and texture are beautiful enough in themselves. But an added attraction in these orchids is their form the curvature of their sepals and petals, and the wonderful little pitchers and cups and lips and tongues which an orchid exhibits. And the form is no mere geometrical pattern of lines and curves. It is obviously an ingenious contrivance devised for some special purpose.
And even as it came to me to know him, he vanished; and I saw him no more." "And what was the Trinity Flower like, my Father?" asked the boy. "It was about the size of Herb Paris, my Son," replied the hermit, "But instead of being fourfold every way, it numbered the mystic Three. Every part was threefold. The leaves were three, the petals three, the sepals three.
He referred every minute fact to cosmical laws. Though he meant to be just, he seemed haunted by a certain chronic assumption that the science of the day pretended completeness, and he had just found out that the savans had neglected to discriminate a particular botanical variety, had failed to describe the seeds or count the sepals.
It throws out a long, slender spike from the tip of the pseudo-bulb, bearing six or more flowers, three inches across. The sepals are lance-shaped, and the petals, twice as broad, rosy-lilac, with veins of darker tint; the lip, arched over by its side lobes, crimson-lake in the throat, paler and striped at the mouth. It was first sent home by Mr. Forbes, of Kew Gardens, from Timor Laüt, in 1880.
The flowers are borne near the top of the stem, and consist of a green, fleshy tube, clothed with spines and little tufts of white wool; the sepals form a row beneath the petals, and are yellowish, tinged with purple; petals 2 in. long, broad, with the upper margins toothed and the tip acute, their colour being bright rose, tinged with greenish-white at the base; stamens yellow; stigma large, green.
The flowers are developed all along the stems, and are composed of a thick, green, scale-clothed tube, about 3 in. long; the larger scales yellow and green, tipped with red, and a spreading cup formed of the long-pointed sepals and petals, the former yellow, green, and red, the latter white, tinted with rose. The flower is about 9 in. across.
The second is called V. arvensis or the field-pansy; it has small inconspicuous flowers, with pale-yellowish petals which are shorter than the sepals. It pollinates itself without the aid of insects, and is widely dispersed in cultivated fields. The third form, V. alpestris, grows in the Alps, but is of lesser importance for our present discussion.
Flowers in a ring about the top of the stem, length 1 in., the tube enveloped in long, black, twisted hairs; sepals brown-purple; petals narrow, sharp-pointed, purple-rose coloured; stamens white and yellow; stigma rose-coloured. Flowers in June and July. Native of Mexico.
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