362 Notes mid Recollections of a Tour. 



shower. Small pipes run across the roof ; these are perfo- 

 rated with holes, and when a shower is required, the water 

 is turned into the pipes by means of a stop-cock, and falls 

 upon the plants in the form of a gentle rain. 



There are two other houses for orchideous plants. Messrs. 

 Loddiges' collection is by far the most extensive known, con- 

 taining more than 7iinetee7i hundred species, collected from 

 all parts of the world, a beautiful catalogue of which had 

 just been issued. One of these houses is terminated by an en- 

 trance into the palm house, the other detached by itself. Our 

 interest in these plants having greatly increased from the 

 many specimens we had seen, we could not help noting down 

 the most beautiful of those now in bloom, some of which 

 were indeed exquisite beyond description. The two houses, 

 which are ordinary span-roofed buildings, have all the species 

 numerically arranged, according to the catalogue, and there is 

 no difficulty m finding any plant at once : were not this sys- 

 tem adopted, among nineteen hundred species, and prob- 

 ably ten times that number of plants, it would be impossi- 

 ble to make a selection without great inconvenience and la- 

 bor. Dendrobium chrysanthemum, and Ceelogyne fuliginosa, 

 were both superb. Cattleya, sp. not named, magnificent; 

 C. superba, remarkably fine ; Oncidium bicolor, beautiful ; 

 Miltonm spectabilis, elegant; with more than twenty equally 

 fine. Messrs. Loddiges grow their plants in various ways: 

 some are placed on charred wood, some on cocoa-nut husks, 

 some in conque shells, and others in baskets, &c., but all were 

 in the most vigorous condition, throwing out their sinewy roots 

 in search of heat and moisture. Nepenthes distillatoria in 

 this house had attained a large size, and was full of its sin- 

 gular, pitcher-shaped, appendages. 



Leaving the houses of orchids, we looked through the gar- 

 den in front of the several ranges : this is mostly filled with 

 successive ranges of brick pits, for wintering all kinds of 

 plants, and for storing away young seedlings, of which great 

 numbers are raised from seeds received from almost every 

 country on the globe. No establishment has ever had such 

 an extensive correspondence, or such advantages for making 

 new additions, and Messrs. Loddiges have well improved 



