ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



I. — Some Account of an Orchideous House, constructed at Pen- 

 llergare, South Wales. By J. D, Llewelyn, Esq., F.H.S. 



(Communicated October 28, 1845.) 



[Mr. Llewelyn having mentioned to the Vice- Secretary that 

 he had constructed an epiphyte house, through which a water- 

 fall had been directed so as to dash over rocks, and finally to 

 flow into a basin forming the floor of the house, that gentleman 

 was solicited to favour the Society with some account of it, 

 which he has done in the following interesting communication, 

 accompanied by an interior view of the house, which forms the 

 frontispiece of the present volume.] 



I enclose with this the ground-plan and section of the stove, 

 which 1 promised to send. These will show the size and shape 

 of the building, and the arrangement of its pipes and heating 

 apparatus, and the manner also in which the water for the sup- 

 ply of the cascade is conducted to the top of the house by means 

 of a pipe communicating with a pond at a higher level. This 

 pipe is warmed by passing with a single coil through the boiler, 

 and terminates at the top of the rock-work, where it pours a con- 

 stant supply of water over three projecting irregular steps of 

 rough stone, each of which catches the falling stream, dividing it 

 into many smaller rills and increasing the quantity of misty spray. 

 At the bottom the whole of the water is received into the pool 

 which occupies the centre of the floor of the stove, where it 

 widens out into an aquarium ornamented with a little island 

 overgrown like the rock-work with Orchideae, ferns, and lycopods. 



The disposition of the stones in the rock-work would depend 

 much on the geological strata you have to work with : in my 

 case they lie flat and evenly bedded, and thus the portions of the 

 rock-work are placed in more regular courses than would be ne- 

 cessary in many other formations. In limestone or granite coun- 

 tries, designs much more ornamental than mine might, I think, 

 be easily contrived. 



The account of the splendid vegetation which borders the 

 cataracts of tropical rivers, as described by Schomburgk, gave me 

 the first idea of trying this experiment. I read in the ' Sertum 

 Orchidaceum ' his graphic description of the falls of the Berbice 

 and Essequibo, on the occasion of his first discovery of Huntlej^a 

 violacea. I was delighted with the beautiful picture which 

 his words convey, and thought that it might be better represented 

 than is usual in the stoves of this country. 



With this view I began to work,. and added the rock-work 

 which I describe to a house already in use for the cultivation of 



