274 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 385. 



to a note in the Orchid Review, this plant was discovered 

 by a Mr. R. Moore, of the Shan States, Burma, who claims 

 to have been the discoverer of the beautiful Cypripedium 

 Charlesworthii. There are several plants of the albino C. 

 bellatulum in English collections, all from the same source 

 as that shown by Sir F. Wigan, of Sheen. Mr. Moore says 

 that C. Charlesworthii grows on limestone hills, the roots 

 clinging to the rocks with extraordinary tenacity. 



Phajus Cooksonite. — The medal offered by the Royal 

 Horticultural Society for the best new hybrid Orchid 

 was this year awarded to Mr. Norman Cookson for a 

 Phajus under the above name, the result of a cross be- 

 tween P. Humblotii and P. grandifolius. It is a distinct 

 and handsome Orchid, not, however, up to the standard of 

 Mr. Cookson's grand hybrid of 1890, P. Cooksoni, raised 

 from P. tuberculosus and P. Wallichii, and which is, per- 

 haps, the finest hybrid Orchid yet raised. The new one 

 has greenish yellow sepals and petals and a large open lip, 

 colored rich red, with golden veins at the sides, the front 

 rose-colored, with dark red spots, the margin being ele- 

 gantly frilled. The plant shown bore a spike of five ex- 

 panded flowers. The name is not well chosen, as it too 

 closely resembles P. Cooksoni for practical purposes. Last 

 year the medal was awarded to P. Owenianus, a hybrid 

 between P. Humblotii and P. Owenia?, a variety of P. 

 bicolor, and raised by Mr. Cookson. 



Habenaria rhodocheila. — This is a near ally of Habe- 

 naria pusilla (militaris), from which it differs mainly in 

 having green leaves and pale green sepals and petals, the 

 lip only being attractive in its size, an inch in length, 

 deeply lobed, and in its bright scarlet color. There are 

 several pans of it now in flower at Kew, where I first saw 

 this species ten years ago, when a few plants of it were 

 received from Hong Kong and flowered m a warm green- 

 house. A figure of it has lately been prepared for the 

 Botanical Magazine. It is worth a place along with such 

 Orchids as H. pusilla, with which it is grown at Kew, and 

 which will soon be in flower, and H. carnea, the Malayan 

 species, which is as ornamental in foliage as an Anoecto- 

 chilus, being deep olive-green, with numerous silvery 

 spots. These three and the tall white-flowered H. Susan- 

 nse are well represented at Kew this year. 



Renanthera Imschootiana. — A plant of this was shown 

 in flower a fortnight ago by Mr. E. H. Woodall, of Scar- 

 borough. It was introduced about 1890 by Messrs. F. 

 Sander & Co. among an importation of /Erides Godefroyse, 

 and first flowered with Mr. Van Imschoot, of Ghent, in 

 1891, when it was described by Mr. Rolfe in the Kew BuU 

 leiin, p. 200. It is closely allied to Renanthera coccinea, 

 the flowers being nearly as large and as brilliant in color, 

 while in its habit of flowering when small (Mr. Woodall's 

 flowering plant is only six inches high) it is superior to 

 that species. The sepals are broad and colored blood-red, 

 the petals being narrow and colored yellow, with red spots, 

 while the lip is pale yellow, with a pair of red spots near 

 the base. The spike is axillary, unbranched, and bears a 

 dozen or more flowers. 



C.'YTTLEYA SUPERBA ALBA. — One of the most beautiful and 

 distinct of tropical Cattleyas is the typical C. superba, from 

 the northern states of South America, which has been known 

 in cultivation here about fifty years. Hitherto it has shown 

 little variation in the color or form of its flowers, with the 

 exception of the white-flowered form. This was discovered 

 in the neighborhood of Para by Mr. E. S. Rand, in 1890, 

 when it was introduced into England and named by Mr. 

 Rolfe. It was shown in flower a fortnight ago by Mr. T. 

 Staffer, of Manchester, and, of course, easily obtained a 

 first-class certificate. The flowers are pure white, except 

 for a stain of golden yellow toward the front of the lip. 

 The only drawback C. superba has is in its behaving rather 

 badly under cultivation for a Cattleya. It is, however, easy 

 to get, being abundant in a wild state and a good traveler. 



Hybrid Disas. — Our houses are gay vi^ith the bright pink 

 flowers of Disa Kewensis, D. Langleyensis, D. Premier 

 and D. Veitchii, as well as of D. racemosa and D. tripeta- 



loides, two of the three species from which the hybrids were 

 obtained, the third being D. grandiflora. I have before 

 observed that while the last named is a comparative failure 

 at Kew, the hybrids are as easily grown as Geraniums, while 

 they reproduce themselves from offsets as freely as Straw- 

 berries. All they require is a cool house or frame, pot or 

 pan culture in a mixture of peat, sphagnum and sand, and 

 jjlenty of water at all times. There are spikes on some of 

 the plants bearing eighteen or twenty perfect flowers, and 

 pans ten inches across contain a dozen plants, each bear- 

 ing a spike of bloom. These Disas may be ranked with 

 plants for the ordinary greenhouse. 



Cycnoches Egertonianum. — A plant of this species has 

 lately produced both male and female flowers at Kew. 

 Last year a pseudo-bulb on the only plant we then had 

 developed a growth about half-way up, and this was re- 

 moved with the upper half of the old pseudo-bulb attached. 

 This offset plant flowered two months ago, producing the 

 long, pendent, many-flowered raceme of purple and green 

 male flowers peculiar to this species. And now the parent 

 plant is in bloom, bearing a short raceme of three thick, 

 fleshy female flovi'ers, the segments lanceolate, one and a 

 half inch long and half an inch wide, the lip fleshy, smooth, 

 with the appearance of a large flat, broad bean. Had both 

 plants been in flower at the same time the occurrence 

 would have been interesting, as, so far as I know, no plant 

 in cultivation has produced male and female spikes to- 

 gether. The question arises, did the removal of the offset 

 from the old plant influence the sex of the former.'' No 

 flowers could be more dissimilar than the male and female 



flowers of this Cycnoches. 



London. 



W. Watson. 



Plant Notes. 



Dwarf Red Pavia. — It does not appear to be generally 

 known that there are several very dwarf varieties of the 

 Red-flowering Buckeye, ^-Esculus Pavia, indigenous to the 

 coast region of the southern states, and that some of these 

 varieties are hardy here in the north. As raised from the 

 seed they are somewhat variable in the size of foliage and 

 growth of the plants, but in the main they retain their dwarf 

 habit and bloom when two or three years old from the 

 seed, and when not more than twelve to eighteen inches 

 high. The flowers are produced in a long terminal spike ; 

 calyx tubular, and the petals bright red and showy. The 

 plants bloom here the first of June. Mr. Andrew S. 

 Fuller has been growing these Buckeyes on his grounds 

 at Ridgewood, New Jersey, for a long time, and the plants 

 of one variety have reached a height of four feet in about 

 ten years, while others of the same age are scarcely three 

 feet high. 



El^eagnus argentea. — A well-grown specimen of this 

 shrub, when it reaches a height of from eight to ten feet 

 and as great a breadth, is certainly one of the very best of 

 the vvoody.plants with light-colored foliage. Some of the 

 Asiatic species, like Ekeagnus longipes, which we have 

 described and figured and which is useful for its fruit, and 

 the smaller E. umbellata, have been in recent years quite 

 generally grown, but the native plant has been compara- 

 tively neglected. The flowers are white without and 

 yellow within, and are not strikingly beautiful, but they 

 are delightfully fragrant, and its abundant fruit is con- 

 sidered edible by persons who have not a fastidious taste, 

 but the silvery foliage of its wavy leaves and the fragrance 

 of its abundant flowers make it an attractive garden plant 

 to those who do not care for its mealy fruit. 



LoNicERA FLAVA. — This plant, which has been preserved 

 in a few gardens since its original discovery nearly a 

 hundred years ago, like Gordonia Altamaha, was a lost 

 plant until a few years ago, when it was rediscovered by 

 Mrs. J. G. Smyth on Paris Mountain, North Carolina, very 

 near the point where John Frazer gathered its seed in 18 10. 

 This Honeysuckle, as well as Lonicera Sullivantii, were 

 figured in the third volume of Garden and Forest, and we 

 have already explained how L. Sullivantii is the plant which 



