NINETEENTH CENTURY. 297 



of his niece, Mrs. Hird, at Apperley Bridge in Yorkshire. In 

 1787 Epidendrum cochleatum flowered at the Royal Gardens, 

 Kew,* and Epidendrum fragrans the following year. Soon after 

 the beginning of this century, several species were cultivated 

 for sale by the Loddiges at Hackney, and this firm held for many 

 years a most conspicuous place among orchid growers. As 

 early as 18 12 they grew a plant of Oncidium bifolium, which 

 was brought from Monte Video, and about the same year the first 

 of the Vandas, Aerides, and Dendrobiums were sent from India by 

 Dr. Roxburgh. Although plants of many orchids were coming 

 to this country during the first thirty years of this century, so 

 little was known of their native places, and their conditions of 

 life, that their cultivation was extremely difficult, and orchid 

 growers met with constant failures. A house was set apart for 

 them at Kew, and Lindley at the Horticultural Society also, by 

 careful study of their habits, tried to discover the right treatment. 

 One of the earliest private orchid-houses was that of the Earl 

 Fitzwihiam, at Wentworth Woodhouse, the genus Miltonia 

 being named in his honour. His gardener, Joseph Cooper, was 

 one of the first successful growers. In 1833 the orchid collection 

 at Chatsworth was begun. The Duke of Devonshire procured 

 plants from the East, and Paxton, who was his gardener at the 

 time, was enabled to cultivate many successfully, and publish 

 the interesting records in the Magazine of Botany, which he 

 edited. The orchid growers since then that have been successful, 

 are too numerous to mention. Such collections as that of Sir 

 Trevor Lawrence or Baron Schroeder are among the wonders of 

 the nineteenth century. 



The history of the introduction of many of these orchids 

 reads like an exciting adventure or fairy tale. The story of 

 the lost orchid Cattleya labiata vera is known to all orchid lovers. 

 The plant was originally sent home from Brazil to Dr. Lindley 

 by Mr. W. Swainson, as a packing round some lichens, in i8i8,t 

 and Lindley described and named it in memory of Mr. Cattley, 



* A Manual of Orchidaceous Plants, part x. By James \'eitch and Sons, 

 1894. 



f About Oycliids. By Frederick Boyle, i8o,>. 



