5 + 



Garden and Forest. 



Number 363. 



PhaLjEnopsis F. L. Ames. — I lately saw a flower-scape of 

 this fine Orchid which measured eig-hteen inches in length 

 and bore sixteen flowers and buds, which had been grown 

 in the garden of Lord Rothschild, at Tring. Messrs. J. 

 Veitch & Sons created this hybrid by crossing Phala?- 

 nopsis amabilis' with P. intermedia, and tirst flowered in 

 1888, when it was named "in compliment to the late Hon. 

 F. L. Ames, of North Easton, Massachusetts, a liberal 

 patron of horticulture and the possessor of one of the finest 

 Orchid collections in cultivation.'' The flowers are as large 

 as those of an ordinary variety of P. amabilis, measuring 

 three inches in diameter, and they are white, except the 

 lip, which is lined and shaded with salmon-red. This 

 peculiar color, together with the form of the lip, are the 

 only marked indications of the other parent, P. intermedia, 

 itself a hybrid from P. rosea and P. aphrodite ; or, to be 

 precise, a plant raised from these two by Messrs. Veitch, 

 and flowered in 1886, proved to be the same as the P. 

 intermedia introduced by Messrs. Veitch from the Philip- 

 pines, and named by Lindley in 1853. 



Pleurothallis scapha. — There are about four hundred 

 species of Pleurothallis, and there are not four that are con- 

 sidered worthy of cultivation. I know three — Pleurothallis 

 Roezlii, P. insignis and P. scapha. The first named of this 

 trio has nodding racemes of purple-red flowers, each over 

 an inch long, and has been in cultivation about ten years. 

 P. insignis, which differs from P. scapha only in having a 

 bearded lip, first flowered at Kew in 1887. P. scapha was 

 named by Reichenbach in 1874 from a plant in the collec- 

 tion of the late Mr. John Day. There is a good example 

 of it in flower now in the cool Orchid-house at Kew. This 

 plant is about a foot high, with ovate oblong leaf-blades 

 and slender scapes, from six to nine inches long each, 

 bearing five to seven flowers, which are remarkable for the 

 length of their filiform segments ; they are three inches 

 long, and colored dull creamy white, tinged and streaked 

 v\'ith dull crimson. The lip is small, glabrous, with the 

 lateral lobes curiously twisted over the front lobe. It is 

 difficult to describe the flowers intelligibly, but they may 

 be said to resemble the insect known as daddy-long- 

 legs. 



Vanda Kijiballiana. — There is an illustration of an excep- 

 tionally well-flowered group of this fine Vanda in 77ie 

 Gardeners' Chronicle this week, and it teaches a lesson 

 worthy of the attention of the Orchid-grower who does not 

 know that this plant does best when grovim in a cool house. 

 In Messrs. Low & Co. 's nursery at Clapton, where it is 

 grown in quantity and grown well, it is placed along with 

 Odontoglossum crispum, except during winter, when it is 

 put into a Cattleya house. If treated as a tropical Orchid 

 it soon succumbs to thrips and damp. The grower of the 

 group of plants mentioned above. Major Mason, says he 

 grows them at the coolest end of a warm house in baskets 

 suspended near the roof glass. They are planted in sphag- 

 num and crocks and they grow in a marvelous manner. It 

 is one of the handsomest of the smaller species of Vanda. 

 It has subcylindric leaves and scapes a foot or more long, 

 bearing from six to twelve flowers, each two inches across, 

 white, with an amethyst lip. 



CvpRiPEDiuM Hknry Graves was exhibited at the last meet- 

 ing of the Royal Horticultural Society, having been brought 

 in flower by Mr. Dimmock from Mr. Graves' garden in New 

 Jersey, where it was raised from C. Lawrencianum crossed 

 with C. Marshallianum. It obtained an award of merit on 

 account of the singular form of its dorsal sepal and its 

 color, which is apricot-yellow, with rosy dots. Cypripe- 

 dium Mrs. Fred. Hardy, a hybrid between C. superbiens 

 and C. bellatulum ; Madame G. Truffaut, a hybrid between 

 C. ciliolare and C. Stonei ; and Cypripedium J. H. Berry, 

 from C. Harrisianum and C. concolor, were exhibited by 

 Messrs. F. Sander & Co., the raisers, and were considered 

 worthy of the award of merit. Two other certificated 

 hybrid Cypripediums, shown by Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons, 

 were C. mimosa superba, raised from C. Spicerianum and 

 C. Arthurianum, and C. Norma, a hybrid between C. Niobe 



andC. Spicerianum. These "pedigree" Orchids are nui- 

 sances, in a literary sense at any rate. 



LjElia purpurata. — This Orchid must be still growing in 

 immense quantities in its haunts, the woods of Santa Cathe- 

 rina, for, during the last twenty years at any rate, it has 

 been imported by myriads, and still they come. Next week 

 one nursery firm offers to sell by auction '• seventy cases of 

 L. purpurata, large plants in grand condition," and another 

 offers one thousand grand masses of it to be sold without 

 reserve. A good variety of this La;lia is a superb Orchid, 

 but it varies a great deal, and one too often meets with 

 forms that are thin and spidery in form and poor in color. 



L^LiA autumnalis is also very abundant in England now, 

 large importations of it having recently arrived. I saw 

 thousands of fine, healthy masses of it in a nursery near 

 London a few weeks ago. This, too, is an Orchid of great 

 merit ; indeed, it and its ally, L. anceps, are unsurpassed 

 in the genus, considering them from all points. They 

 are easily grown, they flower freely and their flowers are 

 beautiful. 



William Thompson, the famous Scotch gardener, nursery- 

 man, and author of several classical horticultural works, 

 died on the 12th ult. at Clovenfords, after a short illness 

 brought on by a fall. He was in his eighty-first year. 

 Thompson, of Clovenfords, formerly Thompson, of Dal- 

 keith, was as prominent a figure in the horticultural world 

 as Hooker, of Kew, or Gray, of Harvard, in the realms of 

 botany. To quote from the editorial notice in The Gar- 

 deners' Chromcle, " He was a prince among gardeners, of 

 stately mien, and of great tact, using his influence at all 

 times for the advancement of gardeners and gardening. He 

 was a man of strong common sense, thoroughly practical 

 in all his ways and his teachings." He worked in private 

 gardens till 1871, when he started as a nurseryman at 

 Clovenfords, where he grev\' grapes largely, and latterly 

 Orchids. His book, A Practical Treatise 071 the Cidlivaiion 

 of the Grape-vine, is a standard work with vine-growers. 



London. W. WatSOtl. 



E 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Gunnera manicata. 

 NGLISH horticulturists who have an eye for noble ' 

 foliage-plants available for outdoor effects do not 

 fail to make use of the two big-leaved Gunneras, namely, 

 G. scabra and G. manicata. They are not exactly hardy 

 here, except in the warmer parts of the country, for even 

 at Kew they require protection in severe weather and from 

 cold winds in spring. But in such favored places as the 

 south of Ireland, South Wales, Devon and Cornwall, they 

 are quite at home and grow to an enormous size. 



The 'view represented in the accompanying picture is 

 in the garden of Mr. Peudennis Vivian, at St. Martin, 

 Cornwall. The value of the Gunnera in the garden is here 

 shovifn exceedingly well. Nothing could be finer than the 

 effect it produces by the side of a lake with Arundo, Gyne- 

 rium, Bamboo, Richardia and other moisture-loving plants 

 as its companions. 



Mr. Vivian writes that the Gunnera was twelve feet high 

 when the photograph was taken, and as the leaves are 

 probably fully ten feet in diameter, the magnificent appear- 

 ance of this specimen, in its beautiful setting of feathery 

 foliage, is easily imagined. I have seen great masses of 

 this Gunnera in some parts of Ireland, where the leaf-stalks 

 were high enough to enable a tall man to walk erect among 

 them without touching the blades. In the garden of the 

 late Sir George Macleay, at Pendell Court, in Surrey, there 

 used to be a very fine specimen of it growing on the edge 

 of the lawn, where it dipped to the lake. Gunneras must 

 be planted in such a position if they are to do well. A 

 sheltered place, near water, where the soil is deep and rich, 

 and where the sun can shine upon the plant all day is the 

 right position for both G. manicata and G. scabra. 



The history of Gunnera manicata was told by Mr. J. G. 

 Baker in the Gardeners' Chronicte in 1S86. It was discov- 



