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group containing our lady-slippers, Cypripedium. Other 
plants requiring this treatment are the East Indian Pitcher- 
plants, Nepenthes, a collection of which will be found here. 
They are mostly vines, growing naturally on trees, their 
leaves curiously modified at the ends into hollow structures, 
provided with lids, and technically known as pitchers, 
which are often wrongly regarded as the flowers; these 
pitchers contain water and secrete from their sides a liquid 
which digests insects that fall or crawl into the pitchers; 
this form of nutriment is apparently not necessary at all, 
however, to the growth of the plants; the flowers are small 
but borne in large clusters arising from the stems and may 
often be seen in this collection. 
In house 7 is a large collection of orchids requiring cooler 
and less humid conditions. Large or interesting genera 
represented here are: Stanhopea, in several species, an 
American genus, with large odd-shaped flowers in pendu- 
lous racemes; Epidendrum, a large American genus, ranging 
from South Carolina and Alabama, through the West 
Indies and South America; Gongora, also a genus of tropical 
America; Oncidium, a large genus of tropical America, 
with a maximum deyelopmcae: in South America; Pleuro- 
thallis, American orchids, usually small, sometimes but a 
half inch tall, and often forming mats on tree trunks, 
commonly at considerable elevations. In this house will 
also be found a large collection of bromeliads, of the pine- 
apple family, in such genera as Tillandsia, Vriesia, Hohen- 
bergia, Pitcairnia, Cryptanthus, and Aechmea. Other rep- 
resentatives of this family will be found at conservatory 
range I, houses ro and 11. 
Power Houses. Steam for heating the conservatories, 
range I, is supplied from the power house, located near the 
New York Central Railroad just south of the 2ooth Street 
entrance and connected with the conservatories by a sub- 
way about six hundred feet long containing the steam mains; 
five boilers are installed and supply steam not only to the 
conservatories, but also to the museum building through 
another subway about twelve hundred feet in length. 
