A EETROSPECT OF ORCHID CULTUEE. 115 



he obtained was far too restricted, and held good only for a limited 

 area ; hence from such imperfect premises the conclusions could 

 scarcely be otherwise than fallacious. 



For example — The Society's collectors in Brazil informed him that 

 " they exclusively occupy damp woods and rich valleys among vegetation 

 of a most luxuriant description, by which they are embowered." The 

 word "exclusively" was unfortunate, for we now know that most of the 

 finest of the Brazilian Cattleyas and Laelias occur at considerable 

 elevations and often in exposed situations. Dr. Wallicli, to whom wc 

 owe the first introduction of many fine Indian Dendrobes, told hini 

 that "In Nepal, the thicker the forest, the more shady the trees, the 

 richer and blacker the natural soil, the more profuse are the orchids. 

 There they flourish by the sides of dripping springs, in deep shady 

 recesses in inconceivable (j^uantity, and Avith an astonishing degree of 

 luxuriance." Dr. Lindley then proceeds to say that high temperature 

 and excessive humidity are essential to the Avell-being of these plants. 

 The hottest countries if dry and the dampest if cool are destitute of 

 them, while there is no instance of a country both hot and damp in 

 which they do not swarm, citing in illustration of this, the Malay 

 Archipelago, the estuaries of the Ganges and Irawaddy, Sierra Leone, 

 Madagascar, and the West Indies. He omits, doubtless quite uninten- 

 tionally, all mention of the higher slopes leading to the Tierra fria 

 of Mexico, both on the Atlantic and Pacific slopes, and also the higher 

 zone of the Andean Cordilleras from Venezuela to Upper Peru, the 

 region of the Odontoglots, Masdevallias, Cattleyas, etc., where the climate 

 is both cool and damp, a region which Humboldt and Bonijland had 

 proclaimed to the world many years before to be rich in epiphytal 

 orchids of the most remarkable forms and of the most exquisite colours. 

 At the same time it should be borne in mind that Griffith had not 

 yet ascended the Khasia Hills, nor Sir J. D. Hooker and ■ Cathcart the 

 Sikkim Himalayas, nor Parish and Benson the mountains of Moulmein 

 and Lower Burmah ; the so-called temperate orchids of the Eastern 

 hemisphere were unknown to Dr. Lindley at the date of reading the 

 paper we have quoted. 



From the data thus adduced Lindley framed his cultural recom- 

 mendations, the most essential conditions of which were deep shade 

 and excessive humidity, to which he added good drainage that appears 

 previously to have been geuerally neglected, but making no mention 

 of ventilation. tSo predominant had Lindley's influence become in 

 all matters pertaining to orchids, whether as the chief botanical 

 authority on them, or from the position he held in the Society, 

 that the unhealthy regime of cultural treatment approved by him 



