ORCHIDS FORCING LILACS. 45 



drooping spikes of flowers, like beautiful wi-eaths. It had been in 

 bloom for ten weeks, having begun about Thanksgiving time. The 

 flowers are deliciously fragrant. The plants may be brought into 

 the house for decorating the hall or parlor, without injury. They 

 have no fleshy pseudobulb, and must never be allowed to dry up, 

 but require similar treatment to that of the Vandas and Aerides. 



A fine plant of CymhkUum aloefolium was exhibited by .James 

 Comley. This is one of the oldest orchids in cultivation, having 

 been introduced from the East Indies in 1790. The Cymhidmms 

 are a very free flowering genus ; this species is sometimes fragrant. 

 Some of the species are very rare and costly, a hundred guineas 

 having been paid in England for C. ehurneum. Some cut spikes 

 of Dendrohimn nohile were also shown by Mr. Comley. This can 

 easily be grown in the warm end of a greenhouse, where it will 

 produce flowers by the hundred. The mode of propagation is to 

 lay the stems in the warm, moist moss. Young plants will then 

 form on the stems and can be separated and potted ; indeed, they 

 will often form on the stems when not laid down. It is also easily 

 propagated by division. Mr. Rand said that he had propagated 

 twenty or tbirty in this way. He had seen single plants producing 

 a thousand flowers each. 



A. P. Calder, who exhibited the forced lilacs, having come in, 

 was asked to give some information as to the variet^y and culture. 



Mr. Calder said that the flowers were all the common purple 

 lilac. Some of the bushes had been growing in his father's yard 

 twelve or fifteen years. He planted them on the benches in the 

 forcing house, some in the sun and some in the shade, just as it 

 happened. The shade makes some difference in the size and shape 

 of the flowers, but not in the color — more in the shape than in the 

 size. Some have full formed flowers, while others have the lobes 

 of the corolla narrow ; the latter grew in the shade. Mr. Calder 

 said he gave them a good deal of heat ; they must have steady heat — 

 if it falls they become checked and dwarfed. They must also have 

 plenty of moisture. These plants were dug up at Christmas time 

 and planted on the bench a week after. Last spring, after the 

 frost came out and the lilacs began to start, he took up a plant and 

 placed in heat, and in three days the flowers began to open. The 

 color changed like that of the flowers exhibited, and the change 

 was in both cases caused wholly by forcing. 



