284 



Garden and Forest. 



[June ii, 1890. 



features of the two; we shall see a likeness in fundamentals, but 

 a difference in details, and, so to say, in the general spirit of 

 the work ; this difference means a greater degree of regularity 

 and sobriety in Delhi than in Granada; and I may say once 

 more, as is the architecture so in every land are the gardens 

 which accompany it. The likeness yet unlikeness of the gar- 

 dens of the Moguls of Hindustan to those of the ancient in- 

 habitants of the country on the one hand, and on the other to 

 those of the Mahometan rulers of other countries, shows with 

 clearness that the art of gardening, no less than its sister 

 crafts, has a historical as well as a purely assthetic signifi- 

 cance. 



In conclusion, I want to call attention again to the fact that 

 among the Hindu remains of the Indian peninsula are some 

 which show an even stronger feeling for wholly natural land- 

 scape effects than we find in Moorish Spain — approaches to 

 rock hewn temples, for instance, composed of rough boulders 

 and irregularly growing trees. So far as I can gather these in- 

 stances are exceptional. But, however rare, they have their im- 

 portance, as showing that the peninsula was akin in its mental 

 characteristics to the further east as well as to the west — as 

 forming a transition which leads us without a break from the 

 classic gardens of Greece and Italy to the picturesque natural 

 gardens of the Flowery Kingdom. M. G. Van Rensselaer. 



should always be carefully attended to. Fill the pot from half 

 to three-quarters full of clean, broken crocks, with a few 

 pieces of charcoal, and keep the base of the plant at the level 

 of the top of the pot, and with a hard pointed stick till in the 

 compost well and firmly among the roots. The plant loves 

 moisture, and at no time should it be allowed to get dry at the 

 roots, particularly during the growing season. Syringing over- 

 head twice a day during the summer is none too often, pro- 

 vided the house can be well ventilated." 



Selenipedium caudatum, var. Warscewiczii. 



THE noble specimen of this Orchid, which furnished the 

 subject of the illustration on page 285, forms part of Mr. 

 F. L. Ames' very rich collection at North Easton, Massachu- 

 setts. It is one of the most ornamental of the genus, both in 

 its large, boldfoliage, andin the handsome flower, which always 

 strikes a person unfamiliar with the curious forms Orchid- 

 flowers sometimes develop as one of the most remarkable 

 objects in nature. 



Selenipedium caudatum was first detected in Peru by the 

 Spanish botanists, Ruiz & Pavon, more than a century ago, 

 and it has been an inhabitant of European gardens for more 

 than thirty years, having been introduced in a living state by 

 Mr. William Lobb, who was a collector for the Veitches, and 

 who traveled extensively in South America, where he made 

 many important discoveries. The variety Warscewiczii va- 

 ries from the typical plant in the deeper and brighter color of 

 its flowers, especially of the petals and the labellum. This 

 variety was discovered by the Polish traveler whose name it 

 commemorates, on the mountains of Chuiqui, in Central 

 America, where, it appears, it grows " exclusively on the tops 

 of the highest trees at sixty or one hundred feet or more above 

 the ground." * It is often cultivated in gardens under the name 

 of Cypriftedium caudatum roseum, and is by far the handsom- 

 est of the group to which it belongs. 



5". caudatum is remarkable for the long, ribbon-like, pendu- 

 lous petals, which, when the flower first expands, are three or 

 four inches long, but continue growing for about ten days, at 

 the end of which they are sometimes two feet or more long. 

 Veitch, in his manual of Orchidaceous plants, records the fact 

 that, from the second to the seventh-day, they have been ob- 

 served to have increased in length as much as two inches 

 each day, and that flowers have been noticed in which the 

 total length of the petals exceeded thirty inches. This plant 

 is also remarkable for the large size of the flowers, the upper 

 sepal being sometimes six or seven inches long, and for the 

 handsome markings of the lip, which is bronze-green, with the 

 enfolded lobes ivory white, spotted with purple inside the 

 brown or yellow-brown border which surrounds the aperture. 



We are indebted to Mr. William Robinson, who has charge 

 of Mr. Ames' Orchids, for the following memorandum of cul- 

 tivation employed to develop this fine specimen, which is 

 probably the largest in the United States : 



" To grow and flower this variety with success the tempera- 

 ture of a Cattleya-house is needed. It should be kept well up 

 to the light, but at all times shaded from direct sunlight. A 

 good time to repot is immediately after the flowering period, 

 and the compost should consist of equal parts good, fibrous 

 peat and live sphagnum moss well mixed with a sprinkling of 

 broken charcoal. As the roots grow vigorously provision 

 should be madefor their development. The pot or pan should 

 be proportioned to size of plant and condition of the roots, 

 which, before potting, should be carefully examined, and all 

 dead or decaying parts removed, with all exhausted material 

 from the ball of the plant. 



"A strong, vigorous plant does not require so much drain- 

 age as one in less healthy condition, but this is a matter which 



* Gardeners' Chronicle, xx. (1883), 722. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 Letter from Haarlem. 



T_T AARLEM, the centre of the Dutch bulb trade, is not only 

 ■*■ -*■ favored with a genial climate, where extremities in heat 

 during summer, or great cold in winter, very seldom occur, 

 but it possesses a soil which can be adapted to the cultivation 

 of plants from regions widely differing from it and from each 

 other in climate and in the quality of their soils. Strangers are 

 always surprised when told what plants can be induced to 

 thrive with us on one and the same piece of ground. Thus 

 luxuriant specimens of your American bog plants like Cypri- 

 pediums and various moisture-loving Lilies can be shown 

 within a few yards from such drought and sun-loving subjects 

 as the groups of central Asiatic Irises are well known to be. 

 I attribute this to the excellent method for which our Dutch 

 government has long been famous in carefully regulating at 

 all times the supply of water in our many canals and rivers, 

 and to the nature of our light, porous, sandy soil, which, 

 though barren and sunburnt its surface may appear during 

 summer, always remains equally moist and cool a few inches 

 below the upper soil. Now by shading and more or less deep 

 planting an almost endless diversity of conditions can easily be 

 made; bulbs, which require a thorough roasting and basking 

 in the summer's sun are only covered with one or two inches 

 of soil, while Sparaxis and Ixias, for example, the bulbs of 

 which are rather impatient of even a very moderate degree of 

 freezing, are planted deeply and very late in the season. They 

 are in this way obliged to make their underground growth 

 during the winter months, and are thus prevented from push- 

 ing up their tender shoots too early in spring. By careful 

 shading a degree of moisture can be provided for the plants 

 not by any means equaling the quantities of water contained 

 in an American swampy tract of land, it is true, but still just 

 enough for the well, being of the respective plants. 



One of the most striking examples of what I have just said 

 may be found in the culture we so very successfully carry out 

 of that group of Irises to which the botanic authorities have 

 applied the collective heading of Oncocyclus, and of which the 

 Mourning Iris (/. Susiana) is one of the oldest and best known 

 representatives. Travelers tell us that the Irises belonging to 

 this group are found in some of the world's most arid coun- 

 tries, where an excessive heat and drought reign in summer, 

 while during winter a degree of cold is registered which we 

 here in our moist Holland never experience. The ground in 

 the countries where the Irises are found becomes covered 

 with a thick sheet of snow early in winter, and under this 

 natural cover the tender rhizomes are happily protected, until 

 the warm rays of the suddenly returning spring melt in a few 

 days the winter's snow and the tracts of land which only a few 

 weeks before seemed shrouded in death become everywhere 

 studded and crowded with the loveliest flowers imaginable. 

 In Holland and the greater part of northwestern Europe, how- 

 ever, nothing can be more capricious than the ordinary win- 

 ter's weather. January last the thermometer often went up to 

 fifty and fifty-five degrees Fahrenheit, while in March it sunk 

 as low as to ten degrees Fahrenheit. In conseqence of this 

 many bulbs which had appeared above ground in the course 

 of January and February had their tops completely frozen off. 

 This did not matter much to the greater part of the bulbs in 

 general, but to Irises of the Oncocyclus group, had they not 

 been specially treated, it would have caused an irreparable 

 damage, if not absolute death. The method followed here to 

 prevent these Irises from running into leaf-growth too early is 

 die following : The rhizomes are not planted earlier than about 

 the beginning of December, and as soon as freezing weather 

 sets in a thick layer of reeds or leaves is applied in order to 

 prevent the frost from penetrating into the soil. The plants 

 are thus making their roots during the dangerous winter 

 months, and the new growths do not appear above ground 

 before the middle of April, when they can grow on without 

 fear of any check. 



Within the last few years some very beautiful species have 

 been added to this group of Irises, /. Gatesii and I. lupina 



