THE CATTLEYA HOUSE 29 



wholesome food and help for the work is simply maddening. If I 

 shall find the other orchids you want I do not know. My boy is 

 gone with Altados for the Oncidium. You may believe me that 

 many more of these fine Cattleyas do not exist, and I can, after all, 

 perhaps not find so good as may be in those you will now receive. 



In the last years I have seen these plants in bloom, when I was so 

 ill with fever, and in no other place can you get such a fine type. 



The plants that I planted when I was taken ill no one found ; no 

 one has been here, and the plants had grown well and some of them 

 very much rooted. 



Trusting that all will arrive in good order, I remain, gentlemen, 

 your very obedient servant, Carl Johannsen. 



Cattleya Mendelii 



The next division is styled the Mendelii house ; more 

 than three hundred large examples of this species — to be 

 accurate and pedantic, it should be called a variety — occupy 

 the centre, a hundred and eighty the stand to right. 



Cattleya Mendehi lives in the neighbourhood of Ocafia, 

 New Granada, at an altitude of 3500 feet. It was intro- 

 duced by Messrs. Backhouse in 1870, and named in honour 

 of Mr. Sam Mendel, a great personage at Manchester in his 

 day. Distinctions of colour are very frequent. Some pro- 

 nounce it the loveliest of Cattleyas. 



Among the noble specimens here, many of them chosen 

 for individual peculiarities, not half a dozen are named ; the 

 rest bear only letters showing their class, and certain marks 

 understood by the initiated. It will be a relief when this 

 system, or something like it, becomes general. And the time 

 is not distant ; at least, the privilege of granting new names 

 at will must be restricted among those who obey the 

 authorities. 



The {qv/ plants here which enjoy a special designation 

 are : — 



