112 GENERAL REVIEW OF THE ORCHIDE.E. 



The "air plants" as the \'andas, Aerides and Saccolabiums were 

 then called, were a puzzle to the horticulturists of the second and 

 third decade of the present century, and how profound was the 

 prevaihng ignorance of their true character may be judged from 

 the following extract from the BotcaiicaJ Register for 1817 under 

 tab. 220, Aeridei^ (Sarcanthus) jyaniculatum : — " Air plants possess the 

 faculty of growing when suspended so as to be cut off from all 

 sustenance but that derived immediately from the atmosphere. Plants 

 of other genera of this tribe, and even of a different tribe arc 

 endowed with a like faculty ; in none, however, can such insulation 

 bo considered as the state of existence which suits them best, but 

 merely as one they are enabled to endure, as a carp is known to 

 do, that of being suspended out of water in a damp cellar." 



To keej) alive an air plant for any length of time and to flower 

 it was regarded as a feat of extraordinary interest. The first who 

 seems to have accomplished it was Mr. Fairbairn, the gardener at 

 Claremont, who flowered Aerides odoratum in 1813. How he succeeded 

 may be related in his own words; — '^I put the plant when first 

 received into a basket with old tan and moss and hung it up in 

 the pine house where it was exposed to the summer sun and to 

 the fire-heat in winter. A tub of water was placed near it into which 

 1 could plunge the basket six or seven times a day, or as often 

 as I passed it." * Some years later the same excellent gardener 

 flowered Renanthera coccinea for the first time in this country.']' 



Towards the end of the second decade of this century Sir Joseph 

 Banks had devised one of the most succesful modes of treating 

 epiphytal orchids then known and which he practised in his hot- 

 house at Isleworth : — " Be placed the plants separately in light 

 cylindrical wicker baskets or cages of suitable width, of which the 

 frame-work was of long slender twigs wattled together at the bottom, 

 the upper portion being left open that the plant might extend its 

 growth in any direction and yet be kept steady in its station, the 

 ends 01 the twigs having been tied together by the twine that 

 suspended the whole from the wood-work of the stove. A thin layer 

 of vegetable mould was strewed on the floor- of the basket on which 

 the rootstock was placed and then covered slightly over with a 

 suflBciency of moss to shade it and preserve a due degree of 

 * Trans. Hort. Soc. Loncl. vol. Yll. p. 499. + See ]). 130. 



