CHAPTER V. 



TREATMENT OF NEWLY IMPORTED ORCHIDS. 



AS soon as the plants are unpacked from the cases, 

 they should be placed in a shady part of the Orchid 

 house ; not at once in great heat, but where the tempera- 

 ture is moderately warm and where they will not be ex- 

 posed to draughts of air, for having been so long confined 

 in close cases, any immediate exposure to atmospheric 

 changes would prove injurious. It is a good plan to 

 cover them with an awning, in order to guard against too 

 much light. 



It is not best to unpack the cases in the Orchid house, 

 for almost always cockroaches will have found their way 

 into the cases, and these once domesticated in an Orchid 

 house are with difficulty extirpated. Every portion of 

 the plants should be carefully sponged to remove scale, 

 with which Orchids are much infected. All withered, 

 decayed, and dead roots and pseudo-bulbs should be 

 removed with a sharp knife. Where large plants are 

 received, they are often incumbered with masses of long, 

 tangled roots ; these should be carefully disentangled by 

 hand and the dead portions removed, care being taken 

 not to bruise the living parts or the young spongioles 

 which often shoot out from old roots. 



Care must also be taken not to injure the eyes, which 

 may have developed at the base of the last year's bulbs, 

 or to bruise any tender foliage. 



