smooth, white, slipper-like lip, which contrasts so forcibly in color
and texture with the lurid shagginess around it. Sir J. D. Hooker, in
describing this species in the _Botanical Magazine_, t. 6, 152, says
that the aspect of the curved scape as it bears aloft its buds and hairy
flowers is very suggestive of the head and body of a viper about to
strike. Dr. Haughton, F.R.S., told me long ago that Darlingtonia
californica always reminds him of a cobra when raised and puffed out in
a rage, and certainly the likeness is a close one.

Grown in shallow teak wood baskets, suspended near the roof in a
partially shaded structure, all the chimaeroid section of Masdevallia
succeed even better than when grown in pots or pans, as they have a
Stanhopea-like habit of pushing out their flowers at all sorts of
deflected angles. A close glance at the engraving will show that for
convenience sake the artist has propped up the flower with a stick, this
much arrangement being a necessity, so as to enable the tails to lie
diagonally across the picture. From tip to tip the flower represented is
9 inches, or not so much by 7 inches as the flower measured in Messrs.
Backhouse's nursery at York.--_The Garden_.

[Illustration: THE SPECTRAL MASDEVALLIA.--MASDEVALLIA CHIMAERA (Natural
Size)]

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SURVEY OF THE BLACK CANON.