126 GENERAL I.'KVIEW OF THK i tKt HIPE.E. 



cool temperatures were maintained, were in usu fur iiLost orcliid 

 collections at the beginning of the seventh decade. With the 

 simultaneous dispatch of Weir by the Koyal Horticultural 

 Society^ of Blunt by Messrs. Low and Co. of Clapton, and of 

 Schlim by M. Linden of Brussels, was inaugurated a new era in 

 orchid culture. 



We have now arrived at an epoch within the memory of most 

 living cultivators and which may not be inaptly regarded as the 

 commencement of the period of modern orchid culture. In the 

 body of this work we have given the routine of cultural treatment 

 mainly adopted by the most successful cultivators of the present 

 time. With improved means and appliances and with a more accurate 

 knowledge o£ the physical conditions under which they grow in 

 their native country, the cultivation of very many of the finest 

 epiphytal orchids from the tropical regions of both the Old and 

 the New World has become as assured as that of the most ordinary 

 stove and greenhouse plants. Added to this the greatly increased 

 facilities of importation, combined with more rapid transport, have 

 resulted in bringing them within the reach of a much larger circle 

 of amateurs. 



Still much remains to be accomplished, but past achievements 

 should encourage future efforts^ and there is surely no reason to 

 despair; let us rather keep in view the defects that remain and try 

 to discover a remedy for them. To cite instances: — Not many can 

 yet boast of growing successfully for half-a-dozen consecutive years 

 such orchids as f'ufth-i/u ritri)i", Ij'ilia alhula, L. rnajiilis, L. fur- 

 furacea, L. nutif)iiialii<, Ejiidcw'/niin vitelliintm , E. ncnior.ih; and others 

 from the Mexican highlands. The great genus Oncidium is known 

 to include more than thi'ee hundred species, of which number more 

 than one-half have at one time or another been introduced into 

 European gardens, but scarcely one-sixth of these have yet proved 

 amenable to the most assiduous care that has been bestowed upon 

 them. Chicidinm, Joiie^ianum, one of the most admired of the genus 

 and eagerly sought after by all amateurs, was imported for the first 

 time in con.siderable numbers iu lcS78, but in less than five yeai-s 

 afterwards scarcely a single plant remained alive in Europe. The 

 fasciculate Dendrobes afford another instance of a group of orchids 

 that often prove provokingly disappointing to the cultivator; of th^' 



