December 31, 1890.] 



Garden and Forest. 



."> 



3 



broad, with wiry, dark purple petioles. The leaflets are a third 

 of an inch broad, obtusely three to five lobed, with a cuneate, 

 rounded or cordate base. The pendulous flowers are pale 

 purple, in very lax panicles, and are borne on long, slender, 

 decurved pedicels. The Ilowers are an inch across or rather 

 more when expanded, with elliptic-ovate, obtuse ribbed sepals. 

 The affinities of T. Delavayii are with T. Chelidonii, a native 

 of the Himalayas. 



' Other plants figured in this issue are Rhodostachys Andina 

 (■t. 7148), an ornamental Bromeliad inhabiting the Cordilleras 

 of the northern provinces of Chili ; Scaphosepalum pulvinare 

 {t. 7151), a native of New Granada, and the representative of a 

 small genus of Orchids whose distinctive characters are the 

 superior lip, the free or nearly free dorsal sepal, the lateral sepals 

 connate under the lip, and the strongly recurved upper lip. If 

 we are to judge from the present figure, this plant has little to 

 interest the cultivators of handsome plants ; Arisema fimbria- 

 tum (t. 7150), and Rhododendron Boothii (t. 7149), a handsome 

 Bootan species with yellow corolla and conspicuous scarlet 

 stamens, discovered with several other species forty years ago 

 by Booth, who visited India at the instigation of his uncle, Mr. 

 Thomas Nuttall, a familiar and revered name among the cul- 

 tivators of botanical science in America, for the purpose of 

 collecting seeds of Himalaya Rhododendrons. The editor, 

 Sir Joseph Hooker, adds to his description of this species some 

 interesting remarks on the distribution of the genus, which he 

 believes, judging by the results of botanical explorations re- 

 cently made in western China, will probably far exceed, in the 

 number of its species, all previous estimates which have been 

 made with regard to it, the discoveries made in the eastern 

 Himalaya being only harbingers of what the vast moun- 

 tain regions further east may be expected to yield in new forms 

 of Rhododendrons. The genus, which is represented in west- 

 ern Europe by three species only, with two additional in the 

 southern Caucasus, develops remarkably in the Himalaya 

 region from west to east. Four species are found in the west- 

 ern Himalaya, while in Sikkim twenty-nine have been collected. 

 Bootan has twenty-five species, of which seventeen occur also 

 in the Sikkim provinces; but Sir Joseph Hooker believes, 

 "considering how imperfectly that great and lofty province 

 has been explored (its alpine regions not at all) it may safely 

 be assumed that this number does not include half of what it 

 contains." East of Bootan little is known of the vegetation 

 until the borders of China are reached, and here in the western 

 mountains between sixty and seventy species of Rhododen- 

 dron have already been discovered, although only fragmentary 

 explorations have yet been made ; and it is, therefore, not im- 

 possible that the Chinese Empire may contain more species of 

 the genus than all the rest of the world besides. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



WITH the thermometer registering from six to twelve de- 

 *» grees of frost almost daily, and a dense fog which has 

 continued night and day for nearly a fortnight, the difficulties 

 of in-door gardening in the neighborhood of London have been 

 unusually trying lately. Soft-wooded plants, such as Begonias, 

 winter-flowering Acanthads, etc., have been almost denuded 

 of leaves as well as flowers. The only houses in which there 

 is anything like interest are the Orchid-houses, and even here 

 many flowers have suffered from the effects of the fog. Cal- 

 anthes appear as though they had been boiled ; the buds of 

 Phalaenopsis have turned yellow and fallen, whilst even such 

 strong flowers as Cypripediums, Dendrobiums and Laslias are 

 affected in color and durability. 



Vanda gigantea. — This is a magnificent Orchid, well 

 named both in regard to its foliage and flowers. Flowering at 

 this time of the year it is exceptionally valuable. Its leaves 

 are stout, leathery, a foot and a half long by nearly three inches 

 in width. The raceme is produced near the base of the stem, 

 and is a foot long, as thick as a goose-quill and bears about a 

 dozen flowers. These are composed of five ovate fleshy seg- 

 ments (sepals and petals) almost equal in size and arranged 

 regularly round the small clavate labellum, forming a cup two 

 and a half inches across. Their color is bright cowslip yellow, 

 with blotches of cinnamon ; the back of the sepals is tinged 

 with purple. This is a good plant for large tropical houses, as 

 is also its near ally, V. Batemanni. According to Griffith V. 

 gigantea is a native of Burma, and is usually found on the 

 trunks of Lagerstroemia Flos-regino?. 



Cymbidium Traceyanum. — This is a provisional or rather 

 unauthorized name for a remarkable Orchid which has lately 



flowered with Mr. Tracey, nurseryman, Twickenham, who ex- 

 hibited it at the last meetingof the Royal Horticultural Society. 

 It is probably a large (lowered variety of C. Hooker ianum, 

 Reichb., f., as it resembles that species in every character ex- 

 cept the size of the flowers. These in C. Traceyanum measure 

 live and a half inches across ; the sepals are an inch wide, the 

 petals slightly narrower and the lip one and a quarter inches 

 across. In color there appears to be no difference bet' 

 the flowers of this and of C. Hookerianum. Mr. Tracey obtained 

 his plant from an importation of C. Lowianum. 



There are four recognized species of this section of Cym- 

 bidium, all of them natives of the Sikkim Himalayas. They 

 bear a close resemblance to each other — so close that some 

 botanists would not hesitate to unite them as forms of one 

 somewhat variable species. They are C.giganteum, C. Hookeri- 

 anum, C. longifolium and C. Lowiauu/u. The first of this quar- 

 tette is an old garden plant, but it rarely occurs in cultivation 

 now. It was introduced into England about fifty years ago. 

 The flowers are about three inches across and colored dull 

 green, with brown longitudinal stripes on the sepals and 

 petals, the lip being yellowish, with dark red spots. 



C. Hookerianum was introduced and flowered by Messrs. 

 Veitch about the year i860, but was not named until six years 

 after, when Reichenbach named it in compliment to Sir Jo- 

 seph Hooker, "with the writer's best wishes as a gratulation 

 for the first new year's day of his Kew directorship." It has 

 broader leaves than C. giganteum, and flowers nearly five 

 inches across; the sepals and petals are apple green, with lines 

 of cinnamon brown, the lip and column yellowish white, with 

 numerous purple spots. As already stated, except that the 

 flowers are a little larger, I cannot see how Mr. Tracey's plant 

 differs from this species. 



C. longifolium was described by Don, but did not «et into 

 English gardens until 1873, when it flowered with the Messrs. 

 Veitch. It differs from the two species already referred to in 

 its narrower leaves, smaller flowers, and in the evenness of the 

 anterior segment of the lip, that organ being crisped in the 

 other two. I have, however, seen it and C. giganteum in 

 flower together, and could see no appreciable difference be- 

 tween them in the size, color or form of their flowers. C. 

 longifolium is found at an elevation of 6,000 to 7,000 feet on the 

 Sikkim Himalaya. 



C. Lowianum is the most ornamental of the four, a good 

 variety of it being a really grand plant when well growrTand 

 carrying its long spikes of large, lasting flowers. It was intro- 

 duced by Messrs. Low & Co. in 1877, and described in that year 

 by Reichenbach as C. giganteum, var. Lowianum, with this 

 reservation ; " It may even prove to be a new species, yet I do 

 not dare to speak about this question from the materials 

 actually at hand." Two years afterward the Professor raised it 

 to the rank of a species, and in the same year a fine picture of 

 it was published in the Gardeners' Chronicle from a plant flow- 

 ered in the Clapton Nurseries. 



These four, or, including C. Traceyanum, five Cymbidiums 

 have long, arching, dark green leaves in tufts, and when well 

 treated they form handsome specimen foliage plants. Thev 

 are not difficult to flower, and their long, many-flowered spikes 

 are very ornamental, notwithstanding the quiet colors of the 

 flowers. The largest specimen Orchid ever seen in cultivation 

 was a huge plant of C. Lowianum exhibited in London by 

 Baron Schroeder last year. 



Cypripediums. — There were some interesting hybrid Cy- 

 pripediums exhibited at the meeting of the Royal Horticul- 

 tural Society on December 9th. The most beautiful was 

 Messrs. Veitchs' C. Niobe X, noted by me last year about this 

 time. It is the outcome of a cross between C. Fairreanum 

 and C. Spicerianum, and both in form and color it is of excep- 

 tional merit. Were all hybrids in this genus as attractive as 

 this, one would have nothing but praise for those who raise 

 and distribute them. Unfortunately, good hybrid Cypripe- 

 diums are the exception, not the rule. If one breeds pigeons 

 or dogs or even cabbages he destroys all the progeny that 

 are inferior to the parents; but a hybrid Cypripedium is hon- 

 ored with a name, a picture, a glowing description and often 

 with a big price for no other reason than that it is of hybrid 

 origin. If compared with its parents it very often proves infe- 

 rior to both as an ornamental plant. 



Mr. Sander also exhibited a fine hybrid named C. Pollctti- 

 anum X, interesting as being the offspring of two hybrids — 

 namely, C. calophyllum x and C. ainanthum superbum x. The 

 last named is a beautiful Orchid, and C. Pollettianum is at least 

 its equal in size, form and attractive colors. The dorsal sepal is 

 large, deep port-wine purple running into lines toward the 

 apex, the upper portion being rosy margined with white. The 

 petals are dark purple, almost black, paler about the base, 



