BASKETING. 19 



pots and grown on till they are large enough to be put into a 

 large pot to form a good specimen. There are several species that 

 may be grown in the same way and in the same compost, but 

 others will not bear so rich a compost. Cypripediums, for 

 instance, thrive better in fibrous peat and leaf mould mixed with 

 sand and charcoal. 



In potting there is this difference between epiphytal and 

 terrestrial Orchids whilst the first thrive best if raised on a 

 small hillock in the centre of the pot, the latter should be potted 

 like other plants, level or just below the run of the pot. The 

 same season for this work, however, is suitable for terrestrials 

 namely, the spring of the year, and also the same attention is 

 requisite in having the fresh pots clean, and draining well, and 

 in cleaning the leaves of such as are evergreen. In the grouped 

 list below, the different composts for each genus are described. 

 To that list I refer the reader. 



BASKETING. A considerable number of epiphytal, and a 

 few terrestrial Orchids, require to be grown in baskets, inasmuch 

 as they have the peculiarity of sending their flower-stems almost 

 perpendicularly downwards, showing evidently that they either 

 grow on branches of trees or in crevices of rocks. If such are 

 grown in pots, it is evident that the flower-stem growing down- 

 wards and being confined amongst the soil in the pot must rot, 

 and thus render the care and attention of the cultivator, so far 

 as the blooms are concerned, abortive. To prevent this mis- 

 fortune, the attentive growers long ago adopted baskets, or 

 placed the plants that had this peculiar habit in piled-up square 

 pieces of peat, through which some of the flower-stems pushed 

 and flowered well. I once had a large plant of Stanhopea 

 oculata so grown, which produced no less than seventeen long 

 flower- stems, with from six to seven large flowers on each. This 

 plant happened to bloom when there was an exhibition in the 

 Botanic Gardens at Liverpool. I took it there and was awarded 

 the first prize for it. Notwithstanding this success, I do not 

 recommend the growing of Stanhopeas in pots } because in such 



