26 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



MEETING FOR DISCUSSION. 



Saturday, February 14, 1874. 



We were again disappointed in our expected essay, C. M. 

 Atkinson, who was to have read a paper on greenhouses, being, 

 on account of the state of his eyes, forbidden by his pliysician to 

 read or write. 



Edward S. Rand, Jr., who had on exhibition a fine plant of Angrce- 

 cum sesquipedale, being called on by the president, made the fol- 

 lowing remarks : — The generic name is derived from angurek, 

 the Malayan name, and the specific name from the astonishing 

 length of the nectary. Most of the species are natives of Africa, 

 and this one is found only in Madagascar, where the trunks of 

 large trees are completely covered with the fiowers. It has a large, 

 star-like, waxen white flower, powerfully fragrant from six in the 

 evening through the night, being strongest at about eleven o'clock. 

 Like the Vandas and Saccolabiums, the flowers grow onlj' in the 

 sun. The plant requires much heat, but is of very easy culture. 

 It is of verj' slow growth, the plant exhibited being ten years old. 

 It begins to flower the first of December, and continues in bloom 

 until March, individual flowers lasting a month. The plant is 

 remarkable for sending out roots from the base of the leaves, at 

 right angles with them, while the flower spikes follow the direction 

 of the leaves. Specimens of the flowers were brought from Mada- 

 gascar in 1857 by Rev. Mr. Ellis, an English missionary. The 

 flowers of most orchids are incapable of self-fertilization, and 

 lequire the aid of insects, and when those of this species were 

 examined by Mr. Darwin, he declared that their fertilization 

 involved the necessity of a moth with a proboscis ten inches or 

 more in length. Naturalists, however, one and all, declared that 

 because no moth had yet been found with a proboscis of such extra- 

 ordinary length, there could be none ; but, on a subsequent voyage 

 to Madagascar, Mr. Ellis not only brought home living plants, but 

 moths with a proboscis of the length which Mr. Darwin had 

 declared necessary. This moth, in seeking the honey at the bot- 

 tom of the spur, so ruptures the parts of the floM'er as to convey 

 the pollen masses to the stigma. The plant exhibited by Mr. 

 Rand is, probably, one of three only in this country, the other two 



