Peristeria elata Lindl.

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘In the year 1826, Sir Henry Barnard, Esq. of Truxillo in Peru, communicated to Richard Harrison, Esq. of Liverpool, a bulb of a remarkable, parasitical, orchidaceous plant, which he had found in the neighbourhood of Panama, and the flower of which is there looked upon with no little consideration, and known to the inhabitants by the name of “el Spirito Santo.”  The reason for this appellation was quite obvious on the blossoming of the plant, which did not occur in Mr. Harrison’s stove, until the summer of the present year, 1831, when the centre of the flower exhibited a column which, with its summit or anther, and the projecting gland of the pollen-masses, together with the almost erect wings, bore a striking resemblance to a Dove, the emblem of the third person of the Trinity.  El Spirito Santo was therefore applied by the same people, and in the same religious feeling as, dictated the naming of the “Passion Flower”.’  [BM t.31161831].

History at Camden Park

Peristeria elata was included in a consignment of plants sent from Kew by John Bidwill in November 1843 [AJCP].  It seems likely that these plants were forwarded to William Macarthur at Camden but there is no direct evidence of this plant being grown there.

Notes