FLOWERING. 99 



The supports for the flower stalks of Orchids should be 

 as small and neat as possible, and if they can be dis- 

 pensed with when the flowers expand, it will add much to 

 the effect of the flower. 



Some Orchids continue to produce flowers for months 

 after the first have faded ; such flowers are always smaller 

 than the first, and such a prolongation of the flowering 

 season tends to exhaust the plant. It should be checked 

 by allowing the plant to go to rest. Phalcenopses are very 

 prone to over-flower and thus exhaust themselves. 



Onddium Papilio, which produces only one flower at a 

 time, will continue to bloom from the same shoot until the 

 plant is exhausted. After the expansion of the third 

 flower, the flower-stalk should be cut off close to the 

 pseudo-bulbs. 



The duration of the flowers of Orchids is in proportion 

 to the time the plant takes from the shooting forth of the 

 flower bud to the expansion of the flowers. Some plants 

 bloom quickly, but keep the flowers in perfection only a 

 few days ; of others, the flowers are ephemeral, as Sobra- 

 lia decora \ others again produce flowers which succeed 

 one another for a month, as certain Maxillarias, Warrea 

 Wallesiana, while with such plants as Phajus, Cyrto- 

 chilum, and Cymbidium for the most part, the flowers con- 

 tinue to expand on the same stem. 



The greater number of Orchids are exquisitely fra- 

 grant ; and their beauty, their different nature, the pecul- 

 iar modes of growth and shapes which they exhibit, furnish 

 a vast field for observation, and one of ever increasing 

 interest. 



We can in this portion of the work only speak in gen- 

 eral terms, referring the reader for special observations on 



