226 THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. [ October, 



about tlieir roots, and to pot tliem in pretty large pots, and place tliem in cool 

 pits, frames, or houses. If carefully carried out, this plan answers well ; but it 

 takes mucb space, which, in most establishments, is very limited. 



The other method is to take up the plants without any ball, to shake the 

 roots clean out, cut them in freely, and pot them in light soil, in pots of the 

 smallest possible size, plunging them after potting to the rim in a bottom-heat 

 of 60° for a month or so, at the end of which time every pot will be crammed 

 full of roots, and the plants may be gradually hardened off, and packed thickly 

 on a greenhouse shelf for the winter. 



Of course it is well to reduce the top as well as the roots in carrying out the 

 latter plan, but this is not necessary to success, as the new fresh roots will sup- 

 port the whole head, better than all the old ones would have done. — D. T. Fish, 

 Hardwicke. 



OECHIS FOLIOSA. 



Ow^EERESTRIAL Orchids are not cultivated with much spirit, except in one 

 ^\x]) or two particular instances, although many of them, when well grown, 

 ©^ will bear comparison with the more popular epiphytal species in general 

 -q) beauty and interest. I was reminded some time since of this fine plant, 

 by seeing a handsome well-flowered specimen, shown by Mr. Thomas Ware, in a 

 collection of hardy herbaceous plants at the Eoyal Horticultural Society's Bath 

 Show. This plant was in the highest state of fresh healthy vigour, and bore 

 seven or eight fine spikes of its purple blossoms. Mr. A. Turner, of Leicester, 

 used to exhibit a still finer plant some years ago, most profusely flowered. 



Orchis foliosa comes from Madeira, and is nearly, if not quite, hardy in this 

 country, though a partially-shaded, cool frame is the proper place for fully 

 developing the plant. Unlike many terrestrial species, this is by no means 

 difficult to manage ; indeed, it has flowered nicely planted out on the rockwork 

 at Kew. 



The plant succeeds thoroughly in a well-drained compost of fibrous loam, peat, 

 leaf-mould, and sand, and like most other herbaceous orchids, likes abundance of 

 moisture at the roots when growing. When the plant dies down, after perfecting 

 its flowers, the pot should be plunged in sand, or coal-ashes, in a pit or frame, 

 where no more heat is used than will exclude the frost. Many terrestrial orchids 

 are damaged, or even killed, by keeping them in a high temperature, and by 

 dryness at the root when at rest. Many of our own native species, as well as 

 those from other countries in Northern Europe, get more moisture when 

 at rest during the cold winter months than at any other period of the 

 year ; and cultivators may rest assured that to allow the soil around the 

 succulent tubers of terrestrial orchids to become " dry as dust " must necessarily 

 be one means of causing excessive evaporation from their surface, in consequence 

 of which they become weaker, and less able to push up vigorously the following 

 spring. It is a well known fact that many species of terrestrial orchids get weaker 



