

PREFACE. 



This Manual lias been compiled to supply amateurs and 

 cultivators of exotic Orchids with a fuller account of the 

 principal genera, species and varieties cultivated under glass, 

 than is contained in the Manuals hitherto in use. 



The rapid extension of Orchid culture during the last 

 quarter of a, century, resulting from the increased taste for 

 and appreciation of this beautiful and interesting order of 

 plants, has created the desideratain which we luive now 

 attempted to supply. The prominent place, too, occupied 

 by Orchids in the columns of the Horticultural Press, and 

 the amount of practical and varied information respecting 

 them disseminated through its agency, has also stimulated 

 the desire to obtain all the leading facts in a condensed 

 form, to which easy reference may at any time be made. 



So numerous are the species a.nd varieties of Orchids at 

 present in cultivation, and to which additions are constantly 

 being made by new discoveries and by artificial hybridisation, 

 that the labour attending the compilation of a Manual 

 sufficiently comprehensive to meet the wants of cultivators 

 has necessarily taken up much time. Moreover, the un- 

 satisfactory state of Orchidology, especially in its horticultural 

 aspect at the time this Manual was commenced, and its 

 complicated and unscientitic nomenclature, have rendered its 

 compilation within a stated time almost an impossibility. 



Under tliese circumstances we decided upon issuing tlie work 

 in parts, each part containing a monograph of the cultivated 

 species and varieties of one of the most important genera, 

 or of a group of genera. The parts were issued according 



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