RENANTHERA. 85 



ventilation is used; in dull weather it sinks to 13° C. (55° F.), while 

 in changeable weather it will vary as much as 11° C. (20° F.) in the 

 course of the day. In severe weather tlie temperature of the house 

 has been observed as low as 3° C. (36° F.), hence there is an annual 

 range of nearly 30° C. (55° F.) ; nevertheless the mean summer 

 temperature is about 24° C. (75° F.), and that of winter about 

 8° C. (47° F.). During the summer the plants are syringed three 

 or four times a day, in winter two or three times a day according 

 to the weather, or as the birch poles happen to be Avet or dry. 

 Strong and healthy stems flower annually, and occasionally twice a 

 year, continuing in bloom several months.* The conditions under 

 which Renanthera coccinea is so successfully cultivated at Chatsworth 

 are peculiar and scarcely to be attained in less favoured places ; the 

 particulars here given may, however, serve as useful hints to cultivators 

 of this orchid. 



R. matutina. 



Stems as thick as an ordinary writing pencil, 2 — 3 feet high under 

 cultivation, leafy upwards. Leaves linear-oblong, 4 — 6 inches long, 

 very leathery, channelled above, obliquely emarginate or two-lobed at 

 the apex. Peduncles wiry, flexuose, branched, many flowered. Flowers 

 bright reddish crimson toned Avith yellow, changing with age into 

 orange-yeUow, 2 inches in diameter, on slender pedicels that are 

 coloured like the perianth; sepals and petals similar, linear, acute, 

 the lateral sepals at first parallel then divergent; lip much smaller 

 than the other segments, saccate, sub-cylindric, compressed with a 

 small tongue-shaped reflexed lobide in front. Column very short. 



Renanthera matutina, Lindl. Gen. et Sp. Orch. p. 218 (1832). Rchb. Xen. Orch. I. 

 p. 90, t. 35 (1855). Miquel, Fl. ind. bat. III. p. 698. Linden's Pesc. t. 12. Aerides 

 matutinum, Blume, Bijdr. p. 698 (1825). 



Discovered in 1824 by Blume, growing on trees at the foot of 

 Mount Salak, in Java, and where twenty years later it was re- 

 discovered by Thomas Lobb, through whom it was introduced by our 

 Exeter firm in 1846. For many years afterwards it was one of the 

 rarest of cultivated orchids, but subsequent importations have 

 caused it to become more generally distributed. Being less refrac- 

 tory to the cares of the cultivator than Renanthera coccinea, and 

 being too of more manageable dimensions, it has proportionally 

 gained in favour. The cultural treatment of R. matutina is the 

 same as that of Aerides and Vanda. 



* For these particulars we are indebted to Mr. Owen Thomas, the excellent gardener to the 

 Duke of Devonshire, at Chatsworth. 



