THE ELORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 321 



ORCHIS FOLIOSA. 



liHE flowers of most of the orchids are remarkable for 

 their grotesque forms, some resembling the heads and 

 bodies of animals, as the Bee Orchis, the Fly Orchis, 

 etc. The species Orchis foliosa is a native of woods 

 and copses in Madeira, and was introduced into this 

 country in 1829. It is a species peculiar to the island of Madeira, 

 where it is found in the rocky banks of Ribeiro Frio, amongst grass 

 and bushes of Spartium canclicans, at an elevation upon the hills of 

 three thousand feet, and where it sometimes grows to a considerable 

 size, the Rev. R. T. Lowe (formerly for twenty years British chaplain 

 in Madeira) having gathered one native specimen which measured 

 two feet seven inches in height. The plant is very much like one of 

 our native species (0. lati folia) from which, however, it differs in 

 being larger in all its parts, in having a distinctly three-lobed flat 

 lip, instead of a lozenge-shaped convex one, a shorter and more 

 slender spur, and a taller stem. In this country the plant produces 

 its fine spikes of purple flowers, sometimes three inches broad, in 

 May ; and it succeeds extremely well, either in well-drained pots or 

 a turf pit, in a soil composed of the turfy portions of heath mould 

 with a mixture of moss and sand, or in one of rich moist peat, loam, 

 and sand. Orchids are generally propagated by their bulbs or tubers, 

 as few of the species produce seed with any certainty. The bulbs 

 or tubers of most of the species are of a peculiar structure and 

 economy. An orchis, on being taken out of the ground, is found 

 with two solid masses, ovate or fasciculated (arranged in bundles or 

 parcels) at the base of the stem, above which proceed the thick 

 fleshy fibres which nourish the plant. One of these bulbs or tubers 

 is destined to be the successor of the other, and is plump and vigor- 

 ous, whilst the other, or decaying one, is always wrinkled and 

 withered. From the withered one has proceeded the existing stem, 

 and the plump one is an offset from the centre of which the stem of 

 the succeeding year is destined to proceed. By this means the 

 actual situation of the plant is changed about half-an-inch every 

 year ; and, as the offset is always produced from the side opposite 

 to the withered bulb or tuber, the plant travels always in one direc- 

 tion at that rate, and in a dozen years will have marched six inches 

 from where it formerly stood. 



CHOROZEMA. 



HIS is one of the most beautiful and interesting of the 

 New Holland genera, and the great part of the species 

 are well worth cultivating. The following short account 

 of the method of growing and flowering them is from 

 actual practice. First, as to propagation. This is 

 generally done by cuttings in spring, say the middle of April, and 



Nuvcmber. 21 



