86 COOL ORCHID GROWING. 



G. velutina. — A handsome velvety-leaved species, in habit 

 very much resembling G. discolor, but the leaves are smaller 

 and more numerous, of the same dark velvety-green, but in 

 addition having a well-defined silvery streak down the centre 

 of each. Flowers white shaded with rose or salmon, rather 

 smaller than those of the last-named species. 



Helcia. 



H. saiujuinolenta (Ecuador). — This old plant is rarely to be 

 met with in our collections. It is nearly related to the 

 Trichopilias, from most of which it may be at once 

 readily distinguished by its having a flat lip. Pseudo-bulbs 

 ovoid, two inches high, one-leaved. Leaves leathery, oblong, 

 and from four to seven inches long. Flowers two inches 

 across, solitary, on slender scapes from three to four inches 

 long; sepals and petals pale yellow, marked with irregular 

 blotches or rather rings of brown ; lip white, blotched with 

 purple on the disc. Clinandrium, or anther-bed, fimbriate, 

 as in Trichopilia j^roper. 



Laelia. 



This is a strikingly handsome genus of American pseudo- 

 bulbous epiphytes well known in gardens. Like their Relatives, 

 the Cattleyas, they bear great showy flowers. They grow 

 freely in peat, sphagnum, and crocks, in a moderate tem- 

 perature, and many are doubly valuable as winter-flowering 

 plants. The larger species, as L. purpurata and L. superbiens, 

 do best in pots ; other smaller growing kinds, as L. albida, 

 L. autumnalis, L. furfuracea, L. acuminata, and the grand 

 " Flor de Maio " of the Mexican Spaniards, do best upon 

 blocks. L. Jonghcana is a small-growing but very beautiful 

 species, said to be strikingly beavitiful. Li habit it comes 

 very near to Cattleya (bulbosa) IValkeriana. Most of the 

 Laslias are useful for the decoration of apartments. 



L. acuminata (1840). — Pseudo-bulbs rather roundish in 



