The New Refugium Botanicum. Cattleya dowiana

Abstract

Cattleya dowiana Bateman, Curtis Bot. Mag. 23(960) (ser.3 No. 265): sub t.5618. TYPE: Costa Rica. ”It was rediscovered in 1864 by M. Arce […] throughout some of the richest portions of Costa Rica. The plants which Arce sent home were purchased by Messrs. Veitch and Son […]. To their liberality I am myself indebted for a specimen that subsequently flowered at Knypersley […] in the autumn of 1866,” E. Arce s.n. (holotype, K) Cattleya dowiana Bateman and Rchb. f., Gard. Chron. 1866: 922. 1866, nom. inval. C a t t l e y a d o w i a n a v a r . moortebeekiensis Linden, Lindenia 15: t.688. 1899. TYPE: Without locality data, “Elle a eté introduite en 1898 á l’établissement de Moortebeek, ou elle a fleuri pour la premiére fois l’année derniére” (It was introduced in 1898 at the establishment of Moortebeek, where it bloomed for the first time last year), flowered in cultivation 1898, L. Linden s.n. (holotype, probable not conserved; lectotype, selected here; the illustration in Lindenia 15, t.688. A large, stout, caespitose epiphytic herb to about 45 cm tall. Rhizome stout, short, covered with dry, papyraceous, adpressed bracts. Roots rather coarse, flexuous, with green apices, ca. 3 mm in diameter. Pseudobulbs fusiformclavate, distinctly swollen in the upper portion, to 25 cm long, 2.5–4.5 cm wide, furrowed, monophyllous, partially concealed when young with basal, glumaceous sheaths, becoming papery and eventually shredding with age. Leaf broadly oblong, obtuse, thick-coriaceous, light green, 20–25 x 5–8 cm. Inflorescence a few-flowered (2–6) raceme, 10–13 cm long, produced from a large spathaceous bract to 11 × 3 cm, green until maturity, becoming dry-papyraceous, brown, when old.