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ROUGH NOTES ON SIX COMMON HILL ORCHIDS. 

 By Major M. B. Roberts, 

 1/39th Garhwal Rifles. 

 With 3 Plates. 

 {Read before the Bombay Natural History Society on 6th July 1905.) 



I have written the following rough notes on orchids (though abso- 

 lutely ignorant of the science of botany, I regret to say) partly on ac- 

 count of seeing an appeal to members to send in contributions to the 

 Journal and partly in the hope that some member well versed in the 

 subject may give us the benefit of his knowledge and experience in an 

 article or series of articles on orchids. 



Of all the beautiful and interesting flowering plants, orchids form, 

 perhaps, one of the most interesting orders. And what, it may be 

 asked, causes so much interest to be taken in this particular order of 

 plants? The answer to this question is necessarily a long one ; but, 

 to put it as concisely as possible, the great attraction that orchids have 

 for one lies in : — (1) The enormous size of the order and its wide 

 distribution all over the world, except in the coldest regions ; (2) the 

 great beauty and delicious scent of the flowers of many kinds on the one 

 hand and the weird forms (often amounting to the mimicry of insects 

 and, it may be added, to the mimicry of evil smells — a Bulbophyllum 

 from Borneo imitates the smell of a dead animal) of some on the other ; 

 (3) the marvellous ways in which many genera propagate themselves or 

 can be artificially propagated and the even more wonderful means that 

 Nature has devised for their fertilisation by insect agency ; and (4) the 

 peculiar and widely differing habits that various genera exhibit both in 

 their modes of growth and of flowering. There are many other items 

 which one could add to this list, but the above will suffice. 



But, unfortunately, there are several obstacles in the way of the 

 amateur who wishes to learn even a little of this large subject, chief 

 among which is the difficulty of obtaining any moderately priced and not 

 too scientifically written books on orchids. There are, of course, many 

 splendid scientific works on the subject which are comprehensible to the 

 botanist ; but these are not only very unintelligible to the ordinary 

 mortal, and are beyond the reach of most of us financially, but such 

 works can only be found in large libraries which do not exi*t where 

 many of us are stationed. 



