[ 50 |] 
vell be more interesting. In 
Well grown it is a bold evergreen plant of noble aspect, and when in flower no Orchid can Vv 
two spikes, and 
the year 1883 a large specimen in the noted collection of Baron Hruby, of Peckau, Austria, bore eee cs oie 
in the same year a plant at Ferriéres belonging to Baron A. de Rothschild bore eleven spikes, the eee is h o fr 
being nine feet. Plants bearing few spikes only have borne them nearly twelve feet in length, and with from forty to Ls 
flowers. The flowers are produced during the summer and autumn months, and endure for several weeks as they open in 
succession. The botanical interest of the plant centres in its drooping inflorescence and in its dimorphous flowers, the 
two at the base of the spike differing in colour, form, and fragrance from those below. It has been surmised that the 
drooping spikes of this and other Orchids may serve as natural ladders up which crawling insects can climb to aa 
nectar or honey, in return for which they fertilise the flowers by carrying the pollen of one to the stigma of another. The 
long drooping petals of some Selenipeds and Masdevallias are presumed to be a different development for a similar end, 
but in all guesses at truth of this kind we are continually met by striking exceptions in the same genera, and these are 
often exceptions which do not prove the rule! For a long time our present species was thought to be quite distinct from 
any other known, but about ten years ago the veteran M. Luddeman, of Paris, flowered Renanthera Lowii var. Rohaniana, 
which closely resembles the plant now illustrated, varying only in its flowers being of a darker yellow and more heavily 
spotted. The flowers of Renanthera Lowii at the base of the spike are orange-yellow, and the others are of a pale 
yellowish hue, variously marked with blood-red spots. Mr. Burbidge in his travels saw two other species in the Bornean 
Islands some years ago, the one being a small-flowered form of R. matutina growing on trees, and the other a large 
white-blossomed kind, spotted or blotched with rosy lilac or purple. The last named grew on a coral islet only twenty or 
thirty yards across ; its roots were firmly lashed to the rocks, and its tops and flower spikes rested on, and were supported 
by low bushes. There were no trees on the islet, but the spot was infested with big snakes, and he had to shout and beat 
the bushes with the paddles of the native canoe and so frighten the creatures off the sunny rocks and into their holes, 
before he could examine the botany of the place. He was told by the native collectors that this Renanthera or “ Angrec,” 
which is the Malayan term for all Orchids of this class (hence the generic name Angreecum), was unknown elsewhere, and he 
did not even see it replaced or represented by any similar species in Borneo during his stay. The cultural requirements 
of this plant are similar to those of all the Vandas from or near to the sea level of the tropics, viz., heat and moisture 
during the season of growth, and comparative, but never total dryness, during their resting time. In Borneo the mean 
annual temperature is about 82 deg. F., the province of Sarawak being pretty close to the Equator. This plant has been well 
grown in large pots, but a crate or large cylinder of teak wood is preferable. Of all Orchids the true epiphytes seem never 
so happy as when a great many of their thong-like roots are exposed to the atmosphere of the house in which they grow. 
The plant may be fixed firmly in position with large crocks, or charred logs of hawthorn wood or teak, and but little or no 
peat is necessary. Too much evaporation from the roots may best be prevented by a covering of fresh, clean sphagnum 
moss, mixed with good peat-fibre only. The main point in growing epiphytal Orchids of all kinds is to preserve a due 
relation between the heat and moisture of the house, and to avoid blanching the roots by the use of crude masses of peat, 
since roots, so blanched like sea-kale, have lost all power of chlorophyll action, 7e., the absorption and formation of flower- 
producing material, and are in a debilitated condition and so disposed to premature decay. When we remember that there 
are some few epiphytal Orchids, like Angraecum funale, known to exist and to flower freely without any leaves whatever, 
the absorption and elaboration of the sap being carried on by the roots alone, we may better observe how highly important 
it is to encourage the production and conservation of the green aérial roots of all epiphytes, seeing that they are at all 
times useful auxiliaries, even when abundant leafage is present on the plant, as in the case of Renanthera Lowii. 
From a plant now in the collection of Monsieur le Duc de Massa, Chateau de Franconville, par Luzarches, France. 
