April 21, 1863. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



287 



Day 



Day 



of 



of 



M'nth 



Week 



21 



Tu 



22 



W 



23 



Th 



24 



F 



25 



S 



26 



Sun 



27 



M 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



Weather near London in 1862. 



18G3. 



Sun's dcelin. 11° 47' n. 



Alder Buckthorn flowers, 



Gooseberry flowers. 



R. P. Knight died, 1S24. G. 



St. Mark Princess Alice born 



3 Sunday after Easter. [1843. 



"Wild Tulip flowers. 



Barometer. 



29.950-29.948 

 29.7S1-29.543 

 29.854-29.628 

 29.995—29.864 

 29.862-29.834 

 29.871-29.846 

 30.026-30.015 



Thermom. 



degrees. 

 64—37 

 60-42 

 61—39 

 69-37 

 76-43 

 G7— 35 

 70-31 



Wind. 



S.W. 

 S.W. 

 S.W. 



S. 

 S.W. 

 S.W. 



w. 



Rain in 

 Inches. 



.11 

 .01 

 .05 



.12 

 .04 



Sun 

 Rises. 



m. h. 

 54af4 



Sun 

 Sets. 



ra. h. 

 3af7 



5 7 



6 7 

 8 7 



10 7 



11 7 

 13 7 



Moon 



Rises 



and Sets 



m. h. 

 57 10 

 41 11 

 morn. 

 23 

 56 

 22 1 

 46 1 



Moon's 

 Age. 



G 

 7 

 3 



Clock 



after ' Day of 



Sun. Year. 



Ill 

 112 

 113 

 114 

 115 

 116 

 117 



Meteorology op the Week.— At Chiswick, from observations during the last thirty-six years, the average highest and lowest 

 temperatures of these days are 58.2° and 36.6° respectively. The greatest heat, 80°, occurred on the 25th, in 1810 ; and the lowest cold, 18", 

 on the 24th, in 1S54. During the period 139 days were fine, and on 113 rain fell. 



FERTILISATION OF ORCHIDS. 



C ILLIWGLY, ac- 

 cording to Mr. 

 Darwin's request, 

 I forwarded him 

 a few seeds of the 

 abortive Cattleya 

 crispa flower re- 

 ferred to, and also 

 a few seeds from 

 a capsule that set 

 spontaneously on 

 Laelia cinnabari- 

 na, -with the view 

 of instituting a 

 comparison upon the reproductive tendency of a perfect 

 and an imperfectly developed flower. The results of his 

 analysis will, in all probability, be already in your hands. 

 I also sent by the same post a few of each of the above 

 seeds to Mr. Gosse, who, after a careful microscopic 

 examination, embodies the results of his views and ex- 

 periments in a form which cannot fail to be generally 

 interesting. 



I may state, in addition to what I have already s.aid, 

 that the more I examine the positions of the organs of 

 reproduction in Orchids, the more I am astonished at 

 their power of producing seed-capsules without insect or 

 other agency. At all events, it seems inconceivable why 

 the pollinium of a perfectly enveloped flower should find 

 its way to the stigmatic surface so as to produce even 

 2 per cent, of fertile seeds. 



Mr. Darwin speaking of Dr. Crnger and Mr. Scott 

 having observed the emission of pollen-tubes from the 

 pollen-masses, brings to my recollection seeing the long, 

 white, stringy, elastic tubes, which have, in several in- 

 stances, been faintly discernible to the naked eye when 

 the pollen-masses were irritated with the sharp point of 

 a pencil. All those who have tried their hand at Sikkim 

 Uhododendron crossing will have observed the same 

 stringy masses, although on a mucli larger scale, by irri- 

 tating any of the stamens. There is, therefore, not much 

 anomaly in a perfect flower producing fruit with little or 

 no artificial agency ; although I am strongly of opinion, 

 after a series of trials, that the germinating power of 

 these pods that have had, so to speak, a spontaneous ex- 

 istence, is exceedingly weak. 



It appears to me that bees are not such useful agents 

 as moths, especially in the hot climate of our Orchid- 

 houses, for probing the orifices of this wonderful and 

 beautifully constituted genus ; for although we have oc- 

 casionally seen bees in the interior of the houses, we 

 were never sensible of their making an attempt to seek 

 nectar from the flowers, as they seemed quite uneasy at 

 their close confinement. There is a species of insect, 

 however, which is one of the worst pests to be found in 

 an Orchid-house, that is admirably suited, with its long 

 proboscis, for all the requisites of promoting fertilisation ; 

 and it may be, for anything I know, an agent in this 

 No. 108.— Voi. 1Y., New Series. 



capacity. The insect I refer to is also exotic — a species 

 of cockroach bearing the name of Blatta orientalis. 

 They delight to feed upon the young roots and flower- 

 shoots of all epiphytal Orchids, and require to be hunted 

 down, else they would make such raids upon these valu- 

 able plants as to seriously deteriorate their value. Their 

 time of working is at night ; and although I have killed 

 dozens of them upon the flowers, I have no mode in 

 candlelight of discovering whether they ever detached 

 the pollinia. In fact, we have all along only been too 

 anxious to deal summarily with them. 



Four out of the seven great divisions of Orchidacese 

 comprise the greater number of plants cultivated for 

 their ornamental appearance in our plant-houses ; and 

 out of these four the Vandea? form by far the most im- 

 portant division. It is a curious fact, if we except all 

 those under the Brassida* subdivision, not a single one of 

 them, but the comparatively recent introduction Sar- 

 canthus Parishii, has offered to set a seed-capsule. Of 

 course, since I set about cross-breeding I have induced 

 several to do so ; but before I ever tried anything of the 

 sort, none of the Vandas, .ZErides, Phal^enopses, Sacco- 

 labiums, Maxillarias, Zygopetalums, &c, made what I 

 have, rightly or wrongly, called a spontaneous effort. 

 The Epidendrea, on the contrary, have been conspicuous 

 in seed-setting ; and I only mention the fact for such 

 scientific men as Mr. Darwin to ponder over and explain. 



Cattleyas often produce seed-pods, and occasionally 

 Leelias, Chysis, Epidendrums, Phaius, Schomburgkias. 

 We had a plant of S. crispa imported from Trinidad 

 among some other things. It is the least ornamental 

 of all the tribe, producing ten or twelve dingy-coloured 

 wavy-edged flowers on the top of a stem about 5 feet 

 long. These flowers only remained expanded about a 

 day, or at most two days, and every one of them pro- 

 duced a seed-capsule, which goes a certain way to corro- 

 borate Dr. Cruger's observations. 



Dendrobiums are the onl}- representatives in the Ma- 

 laxes division that have formed pods spontaneously. In 

 the Cypripedire I have only in my experience had one 

 attempt at seeding, and that was the rare and beautiful 

 superbiens vel Veitehii ; but it was a feeble attempt, 

 ripening-off prematurely, which was never the case with 

 me in any other species. — Jas. Anderson, Meadoto Bank, 

 Uddingstone, N.S. 



MICROSCOPIC OBSERVATIONS ON SOME SEEDS OE ORCHIDS. 



The following observations may possess some points of 

 interest for the readers of The Journal of Horticul- 

 ture. They were made on samples of seed sent to me 

 by Mr. James Anderson — viz., that of a Laelia cinnaba- 

 rina, which had set spontaneously from a perfect flower ; 

 and that from the pod which was produced by an abortive 

 flower of Cattleya crispa, referred to in his communica- 

 tion, Journal of Horticulture, p. 207. I have added 

 some notes on seed of another Cattleya. The obser- 

 vations were all made with a power of 300 diameters. 



Delia cinnabarina. — About 20 per cent, of the whole 

 contain an embryo ; the remainder consist of the empty 

 No. 760.— Vol. XXIX., Old Series. 



