144 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 372. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. 



CcELOGYNK MicHoi.iTzii. — A large number of newly im- 

 ported plants thus named were sold here by auction this 

 week at the instance of Messrs. F. Sander & Co., with the 

 descriptive statement that this Coelogyne was discovered 

 by, and named after their collector, Mr. W. Micholitz, who 

 writes that he has one flower-stalk twenty-seven inches 

 long, which has borne seventeen flowers. The dried flow- 

 ers are described as of large size, pure white and of great 

 substance. In pseudo-bulb, foliage and flower-scape this 

 plant bears a close resemblance to C. barbata, but it ap- 

 pears to be larger in all its parts. It belongs to the section 

 of the genus named Proliferse b}' Dr. Lindley, by reason of 

 " a second scaly sheath being often produced beyond the 

 first series of flowers, and out of that sheath arises a second 

 series of flowers." The plants were in good health, and 

 good pieces brought five guineas each. 



Dendroeium Apollo is the largest and handsomest of all 

 the hybrids bred from D. nobile. Its parents were D. Ains- 

 worthii splendidum and D. nobile pulcherrimum, and it 

 was raised by l\Iessrs. Cypher & Son, of Cheltenham, per- 

 haps the most successful growers of Dendrobiums in Eng- 

 land. A plant of it in flower was exhibited by them last 

 week. It has the habit of a strong D. nobile, and flowers 

 like those of D. Ainsworthii, but the segments are broader 

 and longer, the spread of the flower being fully three 

 inches, while the color is like D. Ainsworthii, but darker in 

 the labellum. This is a plant to be looked after, a truly 

 noble Orchid. No doubt, Messrs. Cypher intend to propa- 

 gate it as rapidly as possible, and as all the D. nobile 

 hybrids are easj^ to cultivate, and may be propagated from 

 pieces of pseudo-bulb, we ought not to have to wait long 

 for an adequate supply of the well-named D. Apollo. 



Masdevallia melanoxantha. — This is an interesting spe- 

 cies, of which an example in flower was exhibited last 

 week by Messrs. F. Sander & Co. It is the true plant as de- 

 scribed by Reichenbach some twenty years ago, and not 

 Masdevallia Mooreana, which, however, often does duty forit 

 in gardens, although the two are widely different. A figure 

 of the latter may be seen in ihe Bolaiiical Magazhie, t. 7015, 

 and one of M. melanoxantha, the first published, is given 

 in The Gardeners' Chronicle for this week (page 359). It 

 has flesh)^ spoon-shaped leaves, like those of M. Harryana, 

 and erect single-flowered scapes, the flowers being re- 

 markable for their flat black-purple lower sepals, which are 

 united almost to the apex, forming a bilobed body an inch 

 wide and an inch and a half long. The upper sepal is 

 rigid, narrow, at right angles to the lower, and concave at 

 the base. The labellum is hairy. It is quite distinct from 

 all other cultivated Masdevallias, and in attractiveness 

 would rank among the second-rate species. 



Phajus amabilis is a worthy companion to P. Cooksoni ; 

 indeed, the two might with some reason be called forms of 

 one. The principal difference is in color, the former hav- 

 ing flowers of a pale pink color and a dull crimson lip 

 covered with reticulating lines of greenish rose, the outside 

 color being coppery red. It was raised b}? Messrs. F. Sander 

 & Co. from P. grandifolius and P. tuberculosus, and was 

 awarded a first-class certificate two years ago. There is a 

 good number of plants of it in the St. Albans nurseries, 

 from whence a group of flowering examples were shown 

 last week along with fine flowering specimens of P. Cook- 

 soni and P. Marthiae. These hybrids are specially valua- 

 ble, as they have inherited much of the floral beauty of P. 

 tuberculosus, and, at the same time, are as robust in grovi'th 

 and as easy to cultivate as P. grandifolius, which in trop- 

 ical countries is used as a bedding-plant. I have seen 

 good specimens of it grown in river mud, and magnificent 

 plants of it have been grown in the same soil as and 

 treated with garden Crotons. 



Maxillaria sanguinea. — This species was first introduced 

 about four years ago from Chiriqui, and it has since flow- 

 ered at Kew and elsewhere. A description of it was lately 



published in the Keiv Bulletin, and Messrs. F. Sander ex- 

 hibited it in flower last week. It belongs to the same group 

 as Maxillaria tenuifolia, having a slender rhizome, small 

 ovate pseudo-bulbs an inch long, and grassy dark green 

 leaves about a foot long. Flowers singly on short erect 

 peduncles, an inch across, the sepals and petals brown, the 

 lip crimson, with a few small dark brown spots about the 

 crest and a pale-colored margin. It belongs to the modest 

 wee things among cultivated Orchids, and is quite worth 

 including in good collections. 



Gladiolus trichonemifolius is a pretty little species of the 

 same section as G. tristes and G. cuspidatus, which are 

 characterized by small corms and rush-like or subterete 

 foliage. The first named is now nicely in flower at Kew, 

 corms of it having been obtained from the Botanic Garden 

 at Cape Town, an establishment which now trades in rare 

 bulbous and other plants native of that region. There is a 

 poor figure of this Gladiolus in an early volume of the 

 Botanical Magazine, compared with vi'hich the flowers on 

 the plants now at Kew are much larger and of a softer 

 canary-yellow color. They are borne on slender stems a 

 foot high, and they have almost equal oblong segments 

 spreading to a diameter of two and a half inches. As Mr. 

 Baker says, this species is quite distinct from the other 

 members of the genus in having so regular a perianth, a 

 character which led to Solander classing it with Ixias. 

 Another name for it is G. citrinus. A dozen corms in a 

 six-inch pot make a pretty little specimen when in flower 

 at this time of year. 



Sternbergl\ Fischerlina. — This plant has been'introduced 

 into England in quantity by Mr. E. Whittall, of Smyrna, 

 some ot whose bulbs are now in flower in pots and in the 

 open border at Kew. It difl'ers from the other species in 

 cultivation in its habit of flowering in spring, and as the 

 flowers are as large as the largest form of Sternbergia lutea 

 and of a brighter yellow color, it is likely to prove a useful 

 plant for the spring garden. There are three or four flowers on 

 each bulb at Kew, and the flowers each last a week or more. 

 The species is mentioned by Herbert in his Amaryllidacecc, 

 but he knew it only from a poor dried specimen. Mr. 

 Baker does not appear to have seen good specimens of it 

 before -he published his book on Amarjdlids. We have 

 now three good garden Sternbergias, namely, S. lutea, a 

 common plant in south Europe and northern Asia, which 

 Clusius called the autumn-flowering Narcissus ; S. ma- 

 crantha, described by me in the last volume of Garden and 

 Forest as having flowered at Kew from bulbs obtained 

 from Mr. Whittall. This is a superb plant, as will be seen 

 presently from the figure of it shortly to be published in the 

 Botanical Magazine. Its fiowers are nearly six inches 

 across when wide open under the influence of bright sun- 

 light, and they are of a bright golden-yellow color. The 

 leaves are suberect, glaucous and very similar to those of 

 the common Daffodil. The third is this spring-flowering 

 species. 



Sn'owdrops. — These are beautiful now on our lawns, 

 among the rockery plants and along with the hardy Ferns. 

 Many thousands of bulbs of Galanthus Elwesii were dibbled 

 into the ground last October, and as soon as the thaw came 

 to release them they sprang up quickly everywhere. I think 

 they are most effective among the" hardy Ferns, the rich 

 brown of the dead fronds as they rest on the ground being 

 a pleasing contrast to the pure v\'hite of the Snowdrops. 

 Fadists who believe in making a species of every plant 

 which deviates slightly from a given type would have no 

 dilficulty m finding at least a dozen among these thousands 

 of G. Elwesii. One form in particular is worth notice, its 

 leaves being glaucous and quite an inch wide, while its 

 flowers have outer segments an inch wide and an inch and 

 a half long. Of course, it is only a major form of G. El- 

 wesii. Indeed, there are some who hold that this latter is 

 nothing more than a form of G. plicatus. However, "let 

 him name it who can, its beauty will be the same.'" Snow- 

 drops are so cheap and they have so great a charm in the 

 early spring, when largely planted on lawns, etc., that 



