346 



Mr. G. C. Johnson. — Mr. G. C. Johnson, a member of the 

 gardening staff of the Boyal Botanic Gardens, has been appointed, 

 on the recommendation of Kew, a Sub-Tnspector for the purposes 

 of the Destructive Insects and Pests Acts under the Board of 

 Agriculture and Fisheries. 



The Giant Orchid. — The large plant of GrammatopJiyllum 

 speciosum presented to Kew by Messrs- Sander and Sons, Bruges 

 and St. Albans, in May, 1893, and since then one of the principal 

 features of House No. 10, is again flowering. Owing to its having 

 been found necessary to reduce the plant last year by removing 

 the oldest pseudo-bulbs, it has on this occasion only one flower- 

 spike, about 7 ft. in height, and carrying over fifty flowers and 

 buds. A better idea of the capabilities of this remarkable orchid 

 was obtained when the Kew specimen flowered in 1907. It then 

 developed three racemes; the tallest attained nearly 11 ft. in 

 height, and had, at one time, 82 expanded flowers and 40 unopened 

 buds in various stages of development, the other two racemes being 

 only slightly smaller. The largest flowers are commonly 6 ins. 

 in diameter, and are borne on the lower half of the infloresence. 

 The flowers have a spice-like odour and good lasting qualities. 

 Their ground colour is dull yellow, heavily spotted with reddish 

 brown ; the sepals and petals are spreading, broadly oblong obtuse, 

 undulate; the lip is small, being scarcely 1 in. long, three-lobed, 

 orange streaked with red, the disk sulcate, with three raised plates, 

 bristling with short hairs. The column is greenish-yellow spotted 

 with reddish -brown, G. speciosum is the most common of the 

 three or four species inhabiting the Malay Archipelago and 

 Malacca. In a wild state, or cultivated in tropical gardens, it 

 forms enormous masses on large trees, producing as many as fifty 

 flower-spikes at one time. It was first flowered in this country in 

 1851. The Kew plant was one of the largest that could be found 

 in the neighbourhood of Penang. It was originally intended for 

 the Chicago Exposition, but, meeting with an accident during the 

 voyage to England, it was decided not to send it any further. 



w. w. 



Magazine for November.~The plants figured are 



Tntnus 



cuius, Weber (t. 8583) ; Nothofagus Cunyiinghamu, Bl. (t 

 Lomcera fragrantissima, Lindl. et Paxt. (t. 8585) ; and Primula 

 vittata, Bur. et Franch. (t. 8586). 



"^^^ Coelogyne was described as long ago as 1881 by Reichen- 

 bach from material sent by Messrs. Hugh Low and Co., 



urma 



was entertained as to its exact identity. The species was lost 

 sight of from that time until the year 1910, when it was received 

 with a small collection of orchids from Tenasserira, presented to 

 Kew by Mr. H. Tilley, of Moulmein. It flowered at Kew in 

 ■May, 1914. The flowers have a greenish-yellow lip with an 



