G22 orchid-gkower's manual. 



culture also opens a field for many not possessing the advan- 

 tages of an East Indian and Mexican Orchid house, or, 

 indeed, any plant house, to commence the study of this 

 beautiful class. 



The terrestrial species, from the Cape and other places, 

 ■which do not, as a rule, produce large flowers, are yet most 

 exquisitely coloured, and many of them most fantastic in 

 shape. We have, moreover, some fine things yet to intro- 

 duce from the Cape. Mr. Plant, in describing some of the 

 rarities he met with in one of his journeys in South Africa, 

 writes: — "The Terrestrial Orchids are numerous and very 

 beautiful. In my opinion, there are many here but little 

 inferior to the most showy of the epiphytous kinds. Fancy 

 a plant with the general character of an Ophnjs, producing a 

 spike of bloom as large and as thickly set as those of Sacco- 

 labium guttatum, often, indeed, measuring two feet in length, 

 of a bright salmon colour, intermixed with as bright a yellow. 

 Another with plaited foliage, and a nodding head of some 

 twenty bright yellow blossoms, having a deep stain of 

 crimson on the cucuUate lip, in the manner and of the size 

 of a Dendrohium. Again, another with fleshy leaves and an 

 erect stem of about two feet, supporting from fifteen to 

 thirty large yellow flowers, the lip lined and blotched with 

 pale purple, bearing the aspect of some robust Epidendrum.'' 

 Many of these fine things would no doubt ere now have 

 enriched our gardens, had Mr. Plant been spared to return 

 alive. What can be more gorgeous than the Bisa grandi- 

 flora ? There are numerous members of this family at the 

 Cape, and though they are not so large in the flower as the 

 species just named, yet they are exquisitely beautiful. Again, 

 the elegance of the North American Cypripediums is not 

 surpassed by that of those which inhabit the tropics. 



Now all these can be cultivated in a cool greenhouse or 



