PHAL.f^NOPSTS. 16 



Schilleriana ; the observed case in P. deliciosa, a species that is no 

 longer in cultivation, at least in Great Britain, rests on the 

 authority of the late Professor Eeichenbach, who mentioned it in 

 one of his communications to the Orchid Conference.* We find no 

 record of proliferation occurring on the roots of any other species of 

 Phala^nopsis, bat the phenomenon has been noticed in other genera, 

 in Cyrtopodium, in Saccolabium,t and especially in our native Birds' 

 Nest orchid, Neottia Nidus-avis, which was observed by Dean 

 Herbert so long ago as 1833,]: by Vaucher, a German botanist, in 

 1841, and subsequently by others. 



Proliferation of the peduncle is a more frequent occurrence ; it 

 always takes place at one of the nodes, usually that immediately 

 below the lowermost flowers when the inflorescence is racemose, or as 

 before the lowermost branch when paniculate. § Many of the si^ecies 

 of Phalsenopsis in cultivation produce proliferous peduncles, but the 

 range of observation has been too restricted, and the recorded 

 instances too few to admit of the formulating of any general law 

 that pervades the phenomenon. Moreover the cultivators of these 

 choice plants, as a rule, cut off the peduncles as soon as the flower- 

 ing is over, as their retention on the plant would greatly weaken it, 

 either by proliferation, or by continuous flowering, and even cause it 

 to perish. The most frequently observed causes of proliferation of the 

 peduncle have occurred in Phalcenopsis LiJddemanniana, P. Schilleriana, 

 P. btuartiana, less frequently in P. rosea, P. Aphrodite, P. intermedia. 

 The most common case of successive branching of the peduncle after 

 the first flowers have fallen occurs in P. amahilis.\\ 



Phalasnopsis aifords a conspicuous example of the rapid enlargement 

 of a genus through the activity of the orchid collectors of the present 

 time in searching out new species and varieties, and through the further 

 multiplication of forms by the skill of the hybridist in the glass 

 houses of Europe. Only one species was known to Linugeus, 

 which was an herbarium specimen sent to him by Osbeck, and 

 to which he gave the i.ame of Epidendrum amabile (175'3), 

 {Phaloinopsis amahiUs, Bl.), and this was the only one known to 

 science for nearly a whole century, till Cuming discovered a 



* Report of the Orchid Conference in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, 

 p. 18. t Idem. 



+ Mn£;azine of Botany and Gardening, ^c^e A. D. Webster in Gard. Chrou. XXIII. (1885), 

 p. 769.' 



§See fig. in Gard. Ghron. IV. s. 3 (1888), p. 389. 



Il Proliferation of the peduncle in other genera have been observed in 0/icidium abortivum 

 by Mr. Swan (Gard. Chron. II. s. 3 (1887), p. 551); in A ngrcecum Leonis by another corres- 

 pondent (Id. IV. s. 3 (1888), p. 515); and in Phaius grandifolius after the stem had been 

 cut off and thrown under the stage (Idem). 



