October 9, 1889.] 



Garden and Forest. 



489 



the Solaudra may be made to bloom every year, and when it 

 does its beauty is of a high order, the llowers being- large, 

 trumpet-shaped, not unlike those of Brugmansia suaveolens, 

 their color being pale creamy-yellow. There is a fine exam- 

 ple of this species now in flower in the succulent house at 

 Kew, and no doubt the dry atmosphere and bright sunshine 

 all summer has had a great deal to do with the free produc- 

 tion of the {lowers. In moist stoves, although the plant 

 grows very luxuriantly, it cannot be induced to flower. 

 Planted in a bed of poor, sandy soil and trained along the 

 roof-glass, the example in the succulent house makes good 

 growth annually, and this is the third successive year of its 

 tlowering there. In winter it gets no water. It is a native of 

 Jamaica, and has been in cultivation since 1781. 



Allamanda violacea. — Yellow is the characteristic color of 

 the flowers of all Allamandas except this, in which they are 

 purplish-rose, or wha'l is known amongst milliners as crushed 

 strawberry color. Although an unknown plant in English hor- 

 ticulture now, yet it was in cultivation in England in 1861, 

 when it was flowered and described. It is now in flower at 

 Kew. As an instance of the manner in which plants are dis- 

 tributed and afterwards preserved in some out-of-the-way gar- 

 den, we may mention the fact that the only garden where, on 

 inquiry, this species was in cultivation was the Botanic Garden 

 of Natal, from whence the Kew plants were obtained. Of 

 course it and all other Allamandas are natives of Brazil. A. 

 violacea has the habit and general appearance of ^. cathartica, 

 but the leaves are covered with scabrous hairs and they are ar- 

 ranged in whorls of four. The flowers are in terminal clus- 

 ters, and each one is shaped like the flowers of A. cathartica, 

 except that the divisions of the calyx are larger. 



Aristolochia ridicula. — Amongst a large number of culti- 

 vated species of Aristolochia, which are remarkable for the 

 fantastic shapes of their flowers, this is certainly one of the 

 most singular. Mr. N. E. Brown, who is responsible for 

 the specific name, described the flowers as "positively droll, 

 the two lobes on the sides of the mouth of the flower forcibly 

 reminding one of donkey's ears." The comparison is very 

 unfavorable to the plant, for the flowers are certainly beautiful 

 as well as interesting in form and color ; they are about four 

 inches long, curved as in the common Dutchman's pipe 

 {A. Sipho), inflated at the base, compressed in the middle, 

 then widening again so as to form a broad, curved neck. 

 The outline of the limb or spreading top is that of a Commo- 

 dore's hat, the mouth of the tube being ellipsoid and filled 

 with white, converging hairs, the two elongated lobes or ears 

 spread in opposite directions, each being one and a half inches 

 long. There are a few club-shaped hairs near the end of each 

 lobe. The color of the tube is greenish-white with purple 

 veins, that of the limb brown with purple markings. The 

 leaves are kidney-shaped, six inches across, and the stem is 

 thin and quick-growing. The whole plant is pale green and 

 covered with long, somewhat stiff hairs. It grows freely in a 

 stove and produces its flowers from the leaf-axils, if is in 

 flower at Kew. Each flower lasts two days. Other Aristo- 

 lochias now flowering here are A. Brasilicnsis, a grand plant 

 for covering large pillars or trellises in stoves ; A. elegans, 

 one of the very best of stove climbers, as it grows freely and 

 flowers abundanfly, whilst the flowers are large, handsome in 

 form and attractive in color ; A. tricatidata, with dark, shining 

 purple flowers, which are remarkable for their three long, 

 drooping tails, and a form quite as striking as that of the Chim- 

 aeroid Masdevallias ; A. trilobata, with elegant, jug-shaped 

 flowers, not unlike the pitchers of a Nepenthes. There are, 

 altogether, a considerable number of Aristolochias with large, 

 ornamental flowers, but they have one unfortunate drawback, 

 namely, that of a disagreeable odor. In this respect A. 

 Bra si/ie/! sis is probably the worst, whilst A. elegans is the least 

 offensive. 



Kew. W. Watson. 



Orchid Notes. 

 TVT EARLY half a century ago Mr. James Bateman, in the intro- 

 -'■^ duction to his famous work, " The Orchidace;e of Mexico 

 and Guatemala," wrote : " It is, indeed, probable that Orchida- 

 ceous culture will always continue in a comparatively few 

 hands, and it will, therefore, be pursued with the same ardor 

 in the upper walks of life that already, in a humbler sphere, 

 attend the cultivation of the beautiful varieties of the Tulip, 

 Auricula and Carnation." Shortly afterward a writer in the 

 Gardeiiers' Chronicle, in reply thereto, remarked: "I suspect 

 that the time is not far distant when we shall have many of the 

 more-easily cultivated Orchids — Dendrobium nobile, for in- 

 stance, the Cypripediums, etc., etc. — going about in the bas- 

 kets of the itinerant flower-sellers in London, and as easily 



grown as Cactics speciosissimus." Perhaps the truth lies about 

 midway between these two opinions. We do not remember 

 to have met with any of the nuinerous vendors of flowers 

 "all a-growin and a-blowin'" who have included Orchids 

 among their stock in trade, though the last-named writer was, 

 unquestionably, near the truth when he added, " But we must 

 have them for the million." 



Orchids for the million we certainly have at the present 

 time, and still their cultivation seems to be extending over a 

 wider field. Most people who have a glass-house of any kind 

 include a few Orchids among their treasures, and, in many 

 cases, with the happiest results. Cypripedimn insigne is a kind 

 which luxuriates in the temperature of an ordinary green- 

 house, and there are many others whose successful cultivation 

 presents no greater difficulties than does a Cineraria or Chi- 

 nese Primula. 



A mania, it is sometimes called by those who profess 

 their inability to understand it and who prophesy its speedy 

 collapse, like the Tulip-mania of a by-gone day. Twenty-five 

 years the late Professor Richenbach gives it, when he orders 

 that his Herbarium shall be sealed up for that period, " in 

 order that the inevitable destruction of the costly collection, 

 resulting from the present craze for Orchids, may be avoided." 

 Let us hope that it is sealed up — beetle-proof, as well as proof 

 against the ravages of bipeds of Orchidomaniacal tendencies 

 — or we fear that its value will be sadly diminished in a quar- 

 ter of a century. 



But it seems highly probable that the present love of Orchids 

 is based on a broader footing than mere vagary of fashion. 

 Perhaps there is no other class of plants which yields a greater 

 return for the trouble expended. The great beauty of their 

 flowers, their grotesque shapes, their wonderful variety and 

 the long period during which many of them remain in perfec- 

 tion are, perhaps, unequalled in any other group ; their small 

 size enables a large number to be cultivated in a compara- 

 tively limited space ; and, so diverse are their periods of flow- 

 ering, that throughout the entire year some object of attrac- 

 tion is to be found in the Orchid-house. Plants with so many 

 good points are not likely soon to go out of fashion. 



The amount of capital now occupied in the importation and 

 cultivation of Orchicls is enormous, and when one remembers 

 the vast quantities of certain kinds which are annually torn 

 from their homes and brought over for the decoration of our 

 gardens the question arises, how long will the supply hold 

 out? Certainly, some species seem to be in imminent danger 

 of becoming as extinct as the Dodo. Some time ago we came 

 across the remark of one collector of a certain species that he 

 believed he had secured the last plant. The Messrs. Veitch 

 remark that the old autumn-flowering Cattleya labiata is be- 

 lieved to have been exterminated many years ago, no plants 

 having been imported for upwards of forty years, although it 

 has been diligently sought for by English and other horticul- 

 tural firms. Can nothing be done to prevent such wholesale 

 destruction ? 



The beautiful Disa grandiflora, the " Pride of Table Moun- 

 tain," as it has been termed, is no longer in such imminent 

 danger of extermination as was the case a few years ago. 

 Large quantities of the tubers were annually exported to 

 Europe, but the summit of the mountain being crown-land the 

 government has seen fit to intervene, and has restricted the 

 removal of tubers within reasonable limits. Perhaps the prin- 

 ciple may yet have to be applied elsewhere. 



London. ' CalypSO. 



Odontoglossum Hiinnewellianuni. — This is a new and hand- 

 some species dedicated to H. H. Hunnewell, Esq., of Welles- 

 ley, Massachusetts. It was imported in 1888 from near 

 Bogota, Colombia, by Messrs. F. Sander & Co., St. Albans, 

 England, through Mr. Oscar Bobisch. The plants have not 

 yet recovered from the effects of the voyage, and, conse- 

 quently, only a few flowers have been produced. These are 

 two inches across, but are somewhat larger in the wild speci- 

 mens seen. The sepals and petals are ovate-oblong, acute, 

 the former being slightly wavy, bright yellow, with a few very 

 large dark brown blotches ; the latter are much more wav^y on 

 the margins, also bright yellow, and covered with numerous 

 blotches of dark brown. The lip, which reminds one of O. 

 luteo-ptirpureuin, is broadly obovate when spread out. It is 

 creamy-white, with crisped denticulate margins, reflexed at 

 the tip and incurved on each side. The surface is covered 

 with brownish blotches, which take the form of small spots at 

 the margins and give the lip a pretty appearance. The crest 

 consists of diverging-toothed keels, witli a smaller one be- 

 tween them, while the white truncate limbs of the column are 

 spotted with brown near the slightly crenulate margin. The 

 pseudo-bulbs of this species are two to three inches long, 



