314 GENERAL REVIEW OF THE OECHIDE^. 



the damp close jungle iu wliich all tropical orchids were then 

 supposed to have their home. 



About this period 1823 — 25 a change in the method of treating 

 epiphytal orchids was made in the Royal Gardens at Kew. A 

 portion of the end of the propagating house was set aside for 

 them, and a bed was formed consisting of loose turfy soil inter- 

 spersed with small portions of stems of trees on which plants were 

 placed where many of them grew freely for a time, most of them 

 rooting into the soil and clinging to the pieces of wood.* The 

 only result obtained by this mode of treatment was, that the plants 

 lived on a little longer than they had previously done. During 

 the period 1824 — 27, Mr. Lockhart, Curator of the Botanic Garden, 

 Trinidad, sent to the Royal Garden many of the orchids indigenous 

 to the island including Stanhopea inslgnis, Oncidium Papilio, Cata- 

 seium tridentaium, lonojysis pallidiflora, and others, some of them 

 being sent growing on portions of branches as cut from the trees, 

 and which being accompanied by instructions from Mr. Lockhart as 

 to how they should be treated, eventually led to some improvement 

 in orchid culture in England. 



The want of success that attended the preservation of the plants 

 for any length of time was supposed to be due to some peculiar 

 difficulty in their cultivation, and it was resolved that an attempt 

 should be made in the garden of the Horticultui-al Society to over- 

 come it. A stove was accordingly set apart for their exclusive 

 culture, and when subsequently Mr. (afterwards Dr.) John Lindley 

 was appointed assistant secretary to the Society, the chief direction 

 of it fell into his hands. " All the earliest experiments were 

 unsuccessful, the plants were lost as quickly as they were received, 

 and when a single specimen was preserved out of an entire collection, 

 some success was thought to have been attained.^' This led Lindley 

 to inquire more closely into the conditions under which orchids grew 

 in their native countries, and which, if accurately ascertained, would, 

 he believed, supply data for a more successful cultivation of them. 

 The results of his inquiry and the inferences he drew from 

 them are summarised in a paper which he read before the Society 

 in May, 1830. It is evident from this paper that the information 



* John Smith (primus), Curator of the Royal Gardens at Kew, in Gard. Chron. XXIII. 

 ^885), p. 144. 



