September '20, 1888.] 



THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE. 



353 



several flowers in a cyme, the flowers of the other 

 species being always solitary. It is thought to be 

 the Ledon cypriuni of Clusius, though it must be 

 noticed that in his otherwise accurate description he 

 omits to mention the purple spot on the petals, 

 which he says are white. He tells us that he re- 

 ceived seeds of the plant under the name which he 

 gives it from Italy, and that he and others raised 

 plants of it for their gardens in Belgium, where it 

 has probably been in cultivation ever since as a 

 supposed Cyprian plant. Its native country seems 

 never to have been questioned, but E. Boissier, our 

 best informant about the plants of the Levant, failed 

 to find it wild either in Cyprus or anywhere else, so 

 that its history is somewhat uncertain. Lamarck's 

 Encyclopedia, published in 17S6, is accepted as the 

 modern authority for the name. Another beautiful 

 Cistus, C. purpureus, referred to the same authority, 

 has a still more obscure history, for its native country 

 is not even mentioned. Willkomm says it is " pro- 

 bably a native of the East," and Boissier observes 

 that, as it never bears even a seed capsule, it may be 

 a hybrid. He never saw even a pretended wild 

 specimen of it. Though not a free flowerer, its 

 habit is good, and it should be in every collection. 

 A rather new Cistus is sold as C. lusitanicus. No 

 authority for the name is given, and I cannot trace 

 it beyond Backhouse's nursery, but I consider it 

 decidedly the best Cistus in cultivation. The flowers 

 resemble those of C. ladaniferus, being nearly as 

 large, with smaller spots, and are borne in great 

 profusion on a very dwarf and hardy shrub. 



Of the white flowered kinds the hardiest is C. sal- 

 visefolius, which forms large bushes everywhere in 

 the neighbourhood of Biarritz, and has a very wide 

 natural range. C. hirsutus is also very profuse of its 

 flowers, which it produces on very dwarf shrubs. It 

 is often wrongly called C. Florentinus, a hybrid 

 kind, which has much smaller flowers, few in num- 

 ber, and in my garden is not worth the room it 

 takes. C. laurifolitis has large flowers, and is hardy, 

 but its leaves and habit are coarse and untidy. C. 

 corba;riensis quite covers the bush with its flowers 

 but for a very short period. 



Of the pink-flowered kinds C. crispus is easily 

 grown ; its flowers are vivid in colour, and are pro- 

 duced for long. Of the varieties of C. villosus 

 (which is called by Willkomm C. polymorphus), C. 

 creticus, which that author makes a distinct species, 

 is perhaps the best. 



Ladanum. — The following notes have been com- 

 piled from writers of widely different dates concerning 

 ladanum, the resin, or gum, of the Cistus, which was 

 made into an important aromatic drug in ancient and 

 medieval times. It is first mentioned by Herodotus 

 amongst the products of Arabia. He says that 

 ledanum, which the Arabians call " ladanum," was 

 collected from the beards of goats, to which it ad- 

 hered like glue from the shrubs on which they 

 grazed, and that it was very much used by the 

 Arabians for incense. Dioscorides repeats this state- 

 ment ; and Pliny, besides telling us about the goats' 

 beards, gives other particulars. He 6ays the best 

 ladanum came from the North-west of Arabia, but 

 that a good quality was made in Cyprus, where it 

 was collected by sweeping the bushes with a rope 

 held at both ends, to which the resin adhered. The 

 price of the finest kind was about half-a-crown a 

 pound (xl assas), which seems surprisingly low, 

 considering the labour of collecting, and the great 

 value of some of the costly navos ; but numeral 

 letters are especially liable to be mistaken. Pliny 

 also tells us that the drug was much adulterated, and 

 that the genuine might be recognised by its wild 

 smell, being " redolent of a desert ;" also by its con- 

 taining bits of rock, and not dust, which was often 

 added. He also says that the gum adhered to the 

 beards of the goats whilst browsing on Ivy (Hedera), 

 evidently confusing the Greek word " Kissos " (Ivy) 

 with"Kist08" (the Cistus). In medieval times we 

 find the scene of the collection of ladanum changed 

 to Crete. Clusius gives some extracts from the 

 travels ot Peter Belon, who visited Crete about half 

 a century before his time. Belon saw ladanum being 



collected on the mountains by raking the bushes 

 with an crgastiri — i.e., a " working tool " — a kind of 

 rake with leathern teeth. [A specimen was exhibited 

 some years since at the Linnean Society, and which is 

 now in the Kew Museum.] The labour of collecting, 

 which had to be endured in the hottest sunshine, was 

 too great for any one except the Greek monks. This 

 ladanum, Clusius says, was imported to Spain 

 through Africa, much adulterated, though the 

 Spaniards, as he suggests, might collect it in abun- 

 dance for themselves from their endless thickets of 

 Cistus. Dodoens, in his Herbal, where he speaks of 

 the virtues of ladanum, cites the same authority of 

 Belon about its collection. He adds that it was 

 called in the shops in his time " labadanum," per- 



FlB. 46. — PASSIFLORA MIERSII : WARM GDKENHOl'S 

 CLIMBER : LEAVES PURPLE BENEATH : FLOWERS WHIT1- 

 FLUSHED WITH PINK : CORONA PURPLE. 



haps to prevent its being mistaken for laudanum— a 

 confusion, and which even the accurate Clusius was 

 not exempt from making. Tournefort, who visited 

 Crete about the year 1700, describes the same mode 

 of gathering ladanum as was witnessed a hundred and 

 fifty years earlier by Belon. In more recent time6 

 the excessive adulteration practised has brought the 

 drug into disrepute, and it is no longer imported into 

 Western Europe, though still in use in Turkey. 



As regards the particular species of Cistus from 

 which ladanum was collected, it is probable that 

 more than one kind furnished it. It is generally 



stated in botanical works that it is collected in Crete 

 from C. creticus, a kind closely allied to C. villosus, 

 if not a variety of it. The two species which have 

 the widest range on continental Asia are C. villosus 

 and C. salviivfolius. In our English gardens these 

 are amongst the least gummy and fragrant of the 

 whole genus; but in the hot climate of the Levant 

 the resinous secretions are far more abundant. Still 

 Clusius was right in saying that more and better 

 ladanum might easily have been collected in Spain 

 than in Crete, and the name ladaniferus may 

 have been applied by Linnieus to a large Cistus of 

 Spain, not because it was supposed to be the source 

 of the drug of commerce, but from the large quantity 

 of ladanum which exudes from its surface. C. Wolley 

 Dud, Edge Hall, Malpas. 



Orchid Notes and Gleanings. 



LISSOCHILUS GIGANTEUS. 



This Orchid, towering above its fellows, merits 

 more than common notice. Professor Reichenbach 

 (see Gardeners' Chronicle, ante p. 616) gives a very 

 full diagnosis, with interesting details of the plant 

 that flowered in Sir Trevor Lawrence's collection 

 (see fig. 83, p, 649, May 19 last) — a plant, by the way, 

 with which he had formed an acquaintance before 

 the time of flowering in one of his visits to onr 

 country. Probably I might be allowed to supple- 

 ment that excellent description by giving details of, 

 without doubt, the most wonderful plant in this 

 country, splendidly grown, as reported by Mr. Robert 

 Todd in your last issue, and exhibited at the great 

 show held at Glasgow under the auspices of the 

 International Exhibition. 



In looking at the plant as it stood in the Grand 

 Hall confronting the improvised throne upon which 

 the Queen sat only a few weeks previously, and 

 which still remains as one of the sights of the Exhi- 

 bition, it was a giant among its flowering fellows. It 

 certainly did not reach the 16 feet altitude which 

 our learned Professor takes as the observation of 

 collectors on the spot, but it much over-reached the 

 Burford Lodge specimen. I measured its spike, and 

 found it to be 1h feet long, bearing from beginning 

 to end twenty-six flowers. 



The plant itself is terre^rial Phaius-like in its 

 character, with the ripened stools level with the 

 fleshy roots, and with the soil in which the plant was 

 growing. Some old fellow, without much Orchid 

 knowledge, declared it to be a Curculigo, and its 

 linear-lanceolate leaves, although much taller, give 

 somewhat of a colour to the suggestion, but in diag- 

 nosing it we find it to be more Phaius-like, with a 

 prominent keel down the centre of the leaf, and from 

 three to four subsidiary keels in the division. In 

 fact it looks more like Sparganium racemosum, 

 being entire at the edges, and of a pale green hue. 

 The matured leaves are fully 6 feet long, amplexi- 

 caul at the base, and from 2 feet upwards, 'as we 

 have said, linear lanceolate. The flower peduncle 

 resembles that of Zygopetalum Mackayi, being quite 

 glabrous and round as a Sugar-cane, with internodes 

 12 to 18 inches apart, more like bracts, as well 

 described by Professor Reichenbach, only the plant 

 in question throws up its peduncle half as tall again 

 as does Sir Trevor's plant. 



The flower differs from that in the described 

 example at p. 616 in being almost concoloured. It 

 is exceedingly striking, however, and is as orna- 

 mental as any novelty in recent times. It is not 

 unlike the colour of a Phalamopsis Schilleriana, 

 but it is far more interesting. Its sepals are 

 inconspicuous, 1 by 2 inch, spathulate, and carelessly 

 reflexed. Petals very prominent, 1J by J inch, 

 obovate. Labellum very conspicuous, sandal-like in 

 formation, with a labiate extremity gathered up in 

 the centre like a well-made sandal, with a bright 

 orange blotch at the base of the column, with 

 three linear lines of a russety hue, as it were, pen- 

 cilled out in parallel lines from base to extremity. 

 The column itself is arching and all but linear, with 



