A KErRUSPKCT OF ORCHID CULTURE. 109 



A RETROSPECT OF ORCHID CULTURE. 



The earliest attempts to cultivate epiphytal orchids in this country 

 were crude and unsatisfactory. Such would naturally be the case in 

 the almost total absence of any certain knowledge of their nature 

 and habits in their native homes ; and moreover the glass-houses 

 into which they were introduced were of very imperfect construction 

 both as regards heating and ventilation. It was therefore not to 

 be wondered at that under these circumstances^ orchid culture at 

 its commencement should liavu been disappointing.^ 



One of the first tropical orchids that became established in 

 British hot-houses seems to have been the Vanilla which was 

 known to Miller^ the second edition of whose Dictionary of 

 Oardening was published in 1 768 ; t it is uncertain which species 

 was cultivated by Miller^ probably more than one. Miller also 

 enumerates several species of Epidendrum, some of which must have 

 been known to him in a living state, for he says : — " The plants 

 cannot by any art yet known be cultivated in the ground, though 

 could they be brought to thrive, many of them produce very fine 

 flowers of uncommon form." Three species sent from Amei-ica, which 

 he planted with care in pots and placed in a stove, produced flowers^ 

 but the plants soon after perished. 



In 1778, Dr. John Fothergill brought home from China among 

 other plants introduced for the first time P/iaius grandifolius and 

 Gymbidium ensifolium ; J the first-named flowered shortly afterwards 

 in the stove of his niece Mrs. Hird, at Apperley-Bridge, Yorkshii'e. 

 In 1787, Epidendrum rocJdeatum flowered for the first time in this 

 country in the Koyal Gardens at Kew, and E. fragraiis in the 

 following year. The last-named species was also brought from the 



* Much of what follows is reproduced from a paper read before the Koyal Horticultural 

 Society, June 11th, 1889, by H. J. Veitch, on Orchid Culture Past and Present, and sub- 

 sequently published in the Journal of the Society. 



tA dried specimen of BleJia vcrenmda was sent to Peter Collinson in 1731 from 

 Providence Island, one of the Bahamas ; liut the tuber appearing to have life in it, he 

 sent it to the garden of a gentleman named Wager, where it was placed in a hot-bed and 

 grew and flowered in the following summer. This was probably the first tropical orchid 

 cultivated in England.— /F. B. Hcimley in Card. Chron. 1. s. 3 (1887), p. 381. 



X Hot Mag. sub. t. 1924. 



