DENDROBIUM. 



65 



Other forms have received the names of albijlorum, Collianum, inter- 

 medium, formosanum, pidcherrhnum, Measuresianum, Schneiderianum, Tautz- 

 ianum, etc., either in reference to the colour or form of the floAvers, or in 

 compliment to the gentlemen in whose collections they have appeared. 

 Familiar as is this grand old Dendrobe, its geographical distribu- 

 tion is but very vaguely known, and its botanical history, too, is 

 often obscure ; all that can be affirmed with certainty is, that it 

 is spread over north and north-east India * and southern China, 

 but, except within the British territory, its limits have not yet 

 been ascertained. It first became known to horticulture — and pro- 

 bably to science — in the early part of the present century, from a 

 Chinese drawing- in the library of the Horticultural Society of 

 London. - ]" The first living plant seen in England was brought from 

 China by the late Mr. John Eussell Reeves, to whom British 

 horticulture is indebted for many useful introductions, and who had 

 purchased it in the market at Macao ; this plant was presented to 

 Messrs. Loddiges, in whose nursery it flowered in 1837. + The variety 

 ccerulescens was gathered by Gibson on the northern slopes of the 

 Khasia Hills, at about 4,000 feet elevation, and was sent by him 

 to Chats worth, in 1837.§ Coohsonianum is a remarkable case of 

 trilabella, that was first observed in the collection of Mr. Theodore 

 Lange, at Heathfield House, Gateshead; the plants raised from this 

 sport subsequently passed into the hands of Mr. Norman C. Cookson, of 

 Wylam-on-Tyne, by whom they were first publicly exhibited ; curiously 

 enough, a sport identical with this occurred a little later in one of 

 the glass houses belonging to the Misses Arkwright, at Mark Hall, 

 Harlow, and a third case has since been reported from the gardens of 

 Mr. J. B. Mirrlees, at Redlands, Glasgow.^! The other varieties have 

 appeared among recent importations ; elegans is in the collection 

 of Sir T. Lawrence, at Burford Lodge, and in a few other places; 

 nobilius was originally purchased by Mr. James, of the Castle Nursery, 

 Lower Norwood, at one of the sales at Stevens' Rooms, the plant 

 being afterwards acquired by Messrs. Rollisson, who exhibited it in 

 flower at the Ghent Quinquennial Exhibition in 1878, but it suffered 



* It was detected by Sir J. D. Hooker covering oak trees at Ckakooug. — Him. Journ. II. 

 p. 19. 



+ Lindl. Sert. Orch. sub. t. 3. £ Idem. § Idem. sub. t. 13. 



If The finest specimen of this remarkable variety we have yet seen, was exhibited by Mr. 

 Perkins, gardener to the Right Hon. W. H. Smith, Greenlands, Henley-on-Thames, at the 

 Meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society, at South Kensington, on March 13th, 18S8. This 

 plant bore 121 flowers. 



