61 



iSTEW PLANTS. 



I ATTLEYA DOWIANA, Captain Bow's Cattleya {Botanical Magazine, 

 • t. 5618). — Orchidacese. This superb Cattleya was. discovered by Wiirs- 

 zewicz in Costa Bica, but in the course of time was lost. It has been 

 rediscovered by M. Arce, and has flowered in the establishment of 

 Messrs. Yeitch and Son at Chelsea. The pseudo bulbs are eight inches 

 to a foot high, much swollen and furrowed. Leaves one on each pseudo bulb, 

 rather broad for tlie genus, from a span to a foot long. Peduncle two to six 

 flowered, very stout ; flowers very large and gorgeously coloured, the huge sepals 

 and petals being clear nankeen, and the lip purple and velvety, with golden 

 threads radiating from its centre. This superb plant is easily grown, but requires 

 the warmest end of the Cattleya house. 



Rhaphia t^digera, the Torch Palm {IJ Illustration Eorticole^i. 499) . — Palmace^e. 

 This is an elegant palm, a native of Brazil, where it inhabits the sides of rivers and 

 lagoons, but is rarely found in the forests of the interior. It attains a noble stature, 

 and throws out from the summit of a slender stem a graceful head of plume-like 

 leaves. 



Dendrobium Charltonii {Hihherd) — This beautiful"species has been forwarded 

 to us fi-om Colonel Charlton, of Farm Hill, Braddon, Isle of Man. It bears some 

 resemblance to D. primulinum, but is scarcely so attractive, owing to its less bril- 

 liant colour. It is of very free habitj the leaves are about a span long, lanceolate, 

 distinctly ribbed, dull dark green. The flowers are produced in large diffuse 

 racemes, sepals and petals neai'Iy equal in size, their colour pale buff yellow. The 

 lip Jbas a tinge of purplish brown at the base, but is otherwise the same colour as the 

 other parts of the flower. Its free habit is a great recommendation to the cultivator. 

 Unfortunately it is quite destitute of odour. The plant has been named in honour 

 of a nephew of Colonel Charlton, who, like himself, is an enthusiastic cultivator of 

 orchids. 



TO COEEESPONDENTS. 



Variegated Ivy. — H. T. ^., Shreioshury. — Your ivy is the common variegated 

 Irish, the garden name for it is Hedera Canariensis variegata. The maculata variety 

 is spotted and mottled with greyish amber, and has redder leaf-stalks than the one 

 you send, and it is also more uniform in variegation. H. C. variegata is one of the 

 most inconstant and variable of all variegated plants known. 



Ferns from Spores. — JF". .7. Mann. — All the ferns in your list are likely to 

 come from spores, provided the spores are good. The simplest and safest way to 

 proceed is to procure a few shallow pans, with bell-gla-ses to fit. Xext, fill the pans 

 to half their depth with broken pots or bricks, and then fill up to the rim with stone 

 or brick, pounded to the size of peas, with all the dust, or with a mixture of peat in 

 nodules and stone broken to the size of peas. Having raised many thousands of 

 ferns from spores, we have learnt to value pounded brick and stone as far superior 

 to peat. Sprinkle the sp^es thinly, put on the bell-glasses, and place every pan in 

 a larger pan filled with water, and then shut all up in a warm and rather dark part 

 of the stove. If you have no stove, put them in the warmest part of the green- 

 house. We have used with great success a large copper trough, three inches deep, 

 to stand the pans in, and to keep all together snug. The trough stands on a flue 

 under a stage, and the heat of the water in tlie trough is usually 80\ that of the 

 top crust of soil in the pans being about 70'. We find this plan suit stove and 

 greenhouse ferns equally well. When the little plants are large enough to handle, 

 we pot them separately, a considerable number requiring only to be lifted on 

 the fragment of stone tliey are attached to without any actual disturbance of the 

 roots. 



Evergreens fob Window — JFatton. — You do not state distinctly what you 

 wish for in the way of information. You say : *' I have a window with an eastern 



