MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 147 
29, 1912. The seeds resulting from the cross were sown on 
May 15, 1913, and a month later the first signs of germination 
were noticed. From the minute green globules first observed 
a root hair developed and later true roots and a rudimentary 
leaf. Plate 28 shows some of these seedlings, natural size, 
growing on an old stem of a tree fern around the roots of 
Oncidium ampliatum. In about four years these seedlings 
may be expected to produce flowers. 
Garden Collection. While the collection of orchids in the 
Garden is, botanically speaking, one of the most complete — 
in the country, it does not follow that large numbers of them 
can at all times be seen in flower. The various genera and 
species have their respective flowering periods and while 
this are times when many may be seen “donna g, frequently 
the number of flowers is small. It is interesting to note that 
the flowering period in any one species comes at about the 
same time in successive years, sometimes varying a few weeks 
one way or the other. The labiata type of Cattleya with its 
varieties may be seen practically throughout the year, each 
variety having its own flowering time. 
At the present time the Garden collection includes about 
eight hundred species and varieties, many of which are rare 
and unusual. All of the florists’ orchids, such as the cattleyas, 
etc., are represented in the collection but not in large num- 
bers. While the number of blooming.species and varieties 
occasionally drops down to a dozen a month, it rises in Decem- 
ber and January to a very much greater number. During 
these months the cattleyas, laelias, cypripediums, and phaius, 
varying in color from yellow to bright mauve, are especially 
abundant and furnish the best display during the year. 
Other interesting forms which either are in flower or shortly 
will be, are the elephant moth orchid (Dendrobium Phalaen- 
opsis var. schroederianum) with twenty spikes bearing up- 
wards of two hundred flowers,several representative specimens 
of Laelia anceps, the two-edged laelia, which will be in flower 
during January, and the long-spurred wax orchid (Angrae- 
cum sesquipedale) with two large wax-like flowers. The 
summer-flowering variety of the latter was figured and de- 
scribed in the July Butterm. Further, the nun orchid 
(Phaius grandifolius), one of the earliest terrestrial orchids 
introduced from China, will have twelve large spikes, each 
bearing half a dozen large flowers, and the baby’s bonnet 
orchid (Oncidiwm luridum) with its long pendant Sate the 
snail shell orchid (Epidendrum pentotis), Dendrobium for- 
mosum var. giganteum with large white and yellow flowers, 
the fan orchid (Oncidiwm iridifolium), bearing small spikes 
