ORCHIDS: HOW TO GROW THEM SUCCESSFULLY. 179 



I am strongly of opinion that your plant is affected with the Cattleya disease, 

 and no one can give an absolute remedy for avoiding it. Such mishaps, 

 however, may be reduced to a minimum under the influence of good cultivation. 

 With this object in view practical cultivators urge and adopt the building up 

 of a healthy constitution in their plants as a most important matter. Orchids, 

 like other plants, are liable to disease, and close attention to their requirements 

 is the best means of checking disease, though it cannot be altogether prevented. 

 This disease, which causes the pseudobulb and leaves to turn black (see page 51) 

 is no doubt a fungoid growth which is always present, but only attacks plants 

 when their constitution, by some means or other, has been weakened and an 

 easy prey to it. [See also answer to H. H., Leicestershire.] 



E. B., LONDON, asks if Cattleya gigas Sanderiana is the free-flowering 

 variety, and adds "the new growths of my C. Gaskejliana are curled and 

 do not grow." 



REPLY. As to the first question you may dismiss any idea that the 

 majority of plants called C. gigas Sanderiana are in any way different to the 

 original species. Doubtless the variety first named Sanderiana was so named 

 as possessing some extra merit, but I presume, it was in consequence of some 

 additional colour in the flower only. Both good and inferior varieties of this 

 species are sometimes exceedingly shy bloomers. 



Replying to the second question, I advise my correspondent to be 

 quite sure whether the Cattleya Fly is infesting his plant or not (see page 46). 

 New growths of Orchids sometimes assume a crippled form and from no 

 apparent cause, though fortunately the number is small. I have now a 

 Cattleya labiata that makes a malformed rseudobulb every year, and on the 

 last occasion a bulb and flower sheath without a leaf. The most curious 

 instance of malformation in a flower that I have had to deal with is a Cattleya 

 Mendelii, which every year produces only a portion of a flower and always the 

 same; it is simply two large petals, nothing more, though the growth of the 

 plant appears to be perfect. I have been informed that the whole of a lot of 

 imported plants sold at an auction sale on one occasion possessed this deformity 

 when blooming. 



C. F., SUSSEX, writes : You will remember I wrote to you last year 

 about a very fine variety of Cattleya citrina which received a notice in the 

 July number of the " Orchid Review " C. citrina aurantiaca. It has this 

 season bulbs bigger than ever, and the plant has been in cultivation nine 

 years, but only two years in my possession. I am growing it on a raft with a 

 small amount of peat fibre, and suspended over a tank behind the door of an 

 Intermediate vinery. I placed it in the stove close to the glass when the 

 growths showed, so as to get them pretty well forward before dull weather 

 came, and then removed it to the vinery. I am growing my other plants of 

 C. citrina in the same way, and the bulbs have advanced in size in each of the 

 three seasons during which the plant has been in my possession. I seem to 

 have hit upon a position and treatment that suits them. I give them very 

 little water, as the roots seem to me to go at the tips much more frequently 

 when the plants are dipped often. Do you draw any distinction between Laelia 



