Transactions of the London Horticultural Society. 321 



though the mean temperature is 80°, the air is dry. In the 

 Calcutta Garden, they grow vigorously in the rainy season, and 

 perish in the hot season. In the hot humid climate of the 

 Isle of France and Madagascar, they exist in vast quantities. 

 In Africa they are rare, except at Sierra Leone, where the air 

 is moist as well as hot; at the Cape they are wholly unknown. 



" In America, their favourite station, according to Hum- 

 boldt, is in the gorges of the Andes of Mexico, New Granada, 

 Quito, and Peru, where the air is mild and humid, and the 

 mean temperature 63° to 67° Fahr. (17° to 19° cent.). In these 

 localities they are so abundant, that, according to the authors 

 of the Flora Peruviana, above 1 000 species might be found in 

 Tar ma, Huanuco, and Xanxa alone. They are not seen far- 

 ther north than Florida, where a single species, Epidendrum 

 conopseum, is found on the Magnolm; but it is well known 

 that the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico, and the effects of the 

 Gulf Stream, give the vegetation of Florida a tropical rather 

 than extra-tropical appearance. In that country this solitary 

 representation of tropical Orchidese exists in the same region 

 as myriads of Tillandsm us?ieoides, which usually vegetates 

 beneath the influence of the dampest tropical atmosphere." 



In the West Indian Islands, particularly in Jamaica and 

 Trinidad, and on the lower ranges of hills more especially, 

 they are abundant. At Rio Janeiro, where the woods are so 

 damp that it is difficult to dry plants, orchideous epiphytes 

 are found in inconceivable multitudes ; but at Buenos Ayres, 

 where the air is dry, they are unknown. In the high dry 

 land of Mendoza, the aridity is still greater ; and there the 

 whole order of orchideous epiphytes almost entirely dis- 

 appears. On the west coast of South America, they are 

 unknown as high as Lower Peru ; the whole of that region 

 being extremely arid, with the exception of a few valleys. 

 There are two species of Orchideae found in the Mexican 

 Andes, which are exceptions to the general conditions for 

 the growth of the order; two species in Japan, which will 

 grow in a low temperature ; and some in New Holland, which 

 thrive in a mean heat of 66° 6'. 



From these facts, Mr. Lindley thinks those conditions of 

 culture might have been safely deduced a priori, which were 

 arrived at in the Chiswick Gardens experimentally. He is 

 persuaded " that if these facts are carefully borne in mind, 

 we shall no longer experience any difficulty in the cultivation 

 of orchideous epiphytes, and that the time is not distant when 

 the beauty of the dendrobiums and bolbophyllums of India, of 

 the oncidiums of the West Indies, the aerides of China, and 

 the epidendrums of Peru, will add a charm to every hot-house." 

 (To be continued.) 



Vol. VIII. — No. 38. y 



