Curtis Botanical – Plate 7142 – Beautiful Sac-lip Orchid

Original antique black-and-white botanical print from Curtis's Botanical Magazine — Plate 7142.

Plant: Saccolabium Bellinum (Beautiful Sac-lip Orchid). Native to: Southeast Asia (Myanmar / Thailand).

Now known as Gastrochilus bellinus — intricate white-and-yellow flowers with a pouch-shaped lip. The stranger the flower architecture, the higher Victorian collectors paid. Found in the mountain forests of Myanmar and Thailand.

Printed in London. Each print is an original page removed from a bound volume of Curtis's Botanical Magazine, the world's oldest continuously published botanical journal (founded 1787). Uncolored plate. Sold individually. Minor age-related toning consistent with 19th-century paper.

This plate originated with the Royal Horticultural Society and passed through Wheldon & Wesley, one of the great natural history dealers of the 20th century. We came into the archive by accident and have spent the time since trying to share it as widely as we can.