204 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 326- 



a scientific monograph of the most important genera of 

 garden Orchids, has been provided by Messrs. Veitch, and 

 we are deeply indebted to them for it. Not even at Kew 

 would it have been possible to produce such a work as 

 this that has emanated from the great Chelsea, Nursery ; 

 indeed, one may say that the only establishment where 

 such an undertaking could be successfully worked out 

 was that of the nursery firm which, for nearly a century, 

 has done so much to further the interests of scientific horti- 

 culture, both by enterprise in collecting and cultivating for 

 distribution all kinds of interesting plants, and especially 

 Orchids. 



Ccelogyne Swaniana. — I mentioned this new Orchid last 

 week and suggested that it might prove to be a form of C. 

 Massangeana. I have since had an opportunity to com- 

 pare the two, and perceive a marked difference between 

 them, the pseudo-bulbs and leaves of C. Swaniana being 

 shorter than those of C. Massangeana ; the flowers, too, 

 are smaller, the pendent scapes shorter, and there are other 

 differences besides that of color. I consider C. Swaniana 

 (named by Mr. Sander in compliment to Mr. Swan, A. R.A., 

 the eminent animal painter) a beautiful addition to this 

 section of cultivated Ccelogynes. 

 It has lately been introduced by 

 Messrs. F. Sander & Co., in whose 

 nursery it is now represented by 

 numerous plants in flower. Ap- 

 parently it is as easy to manage 

 as C. Massangeana. Of this latter 

 Messrs. F. Sander & Co. have many 

 specimens, some of which are now 

 bearing numerous necklace-like 

 scapes of flowers, in some cases 

 a yard long. 



LiELtA Phcebe is a hybrid of ex- 

 traordinary beauty and distinct- 

 ness. It was raised from L. cin- 

 nabarina and Cattleya Mossias by 

 Messrs. F. Sander & Co. , in whose 

 nursery I recently saw it in flower. 

 It has flowers five inches across, 

 with segments as broad again as 

 those of L. cinnabarina and a lip 

 intermediate between that of the 

 two parents, the color of the whole 

 being a rich, glistening orange- 

 buff, richer than the flesh of an 

 apricot, with a feather-like crim- 

 son marking of the front lobe of 

 the lip. This is a plant for which 

 we are all ready to feel grateful to 

 the hybridist. 



Phajus grandifolius and its allies evidently are a great 

 deal more variable than we have hitherto believed. In 

 the St. Albans nursery at the present time there are hun- 

 dreds of them in flower, so variable both in size and color 

 that some botanists might easily find in them twenty or 

 more good species, while others would lump them all 

 under one species of a surprisingly varied character. 



Cypripedium Annie Measures. — This hybrid between C. 

 bellatulum andC. Dayanum was shown in flower last week 

 by Mr. R. J. Measures, and awarded a first-class certificate 

 by the Royal Horticultural Society. As might be expected 

 from the extremely diverse characters of its parents, it is a 

 well-marked plant, and an improvement upon C. bella- 

 tulum in habit and flower-color ; it has prettily marbled 

 leaves six inches long, and flowers four inches across on 

 stalks six inches high ; the petals are an inch broad, white, 

 thickly spotted with purple ; the broad, concave dorsal 

 sepal is yellow, margined with white and lined with pur- 

 ple, and the narrow, compressed lip is colored purple, paler 

 toward the point. 



Bulbophyllum saurocephalum, which was shown last 

 week by Mr. J. O'Brien, and obtained an award of merit, is 

 an interesting species from the Philippines, remarkable for 



Fig. 36. — Stephen Elliott. — See page 201. 



its curved flower-scape, the upper half of which is purple 

 and thickened like a club, with the small purple and yellow 

 flowers springing from little pits. 



Cypripedium niveum is one of the most delightful of all 

 Cypripediums when it is happy and in full flower, its 

 elegant white flowers, sometimes speckled all over with 

 tiny purple dots, being without equal in the genus. But it 

 is a bad plant to manage in most collections, being more 

 liable to the dreaded Orchid disease known as spot than 

 any of its congeners. I am told by a friend who has seen 

 it growing wild in the islands off the Malay Peninsula that 

 it is always found growing on the face of limestone rocks 

 not far from the sea, its roots nestling among the debris 

 formed in little depressions in the rock, and its leaves ex- 

 posed to full sunshine. It gets completely dried up for a 

 portion of the year, but when the wet season returns it 

 soon recovers and flowers profusely. No doubt, we fail 

 with this plant through growing it in the ordinary peat 

 mixture in a moist, shaded house, and keeping it watered 

 all the year round. 



Cattleya SchrederjE was described as a variety of C. 

 Trianfe by Reichenbach in 1887, when it was first intro- 

 duced, and as C. Triana; it has 

 been reduced to a variety of C. 

 labiata. The correct name is now 

 C. labiata, var. Schrcederse. Some 

 writers have confused this plant 

 with C. Schrcederiana of Reichen- 

 bach, now reduced to a variety of 

 C. Walkeriana, and, of course, a 

 very different plant from that un- 

 der notice. At this time C. Schrce- 

 derte is one of the most charming 

 Orchids in flower, its soft and 

 pleasing colors, variety of tints 

 (there are a dozen or more named 

 varieties now) and delicious, pow- 

 erful fragrance being exceptionally 

 welcome in the Orchid-house. Mr. 

 Rolfe agrees with me that, except 

 in these characters of fragrance 

 and shade of color, C. Schrcederae 

 does not differ from what is gener- 

 ally known as C. Trianse. It is a 

 native of New Grenada, and is now 

 sufficiently common to be easily 

 obtainable. 



Spathoglottis Kimballiana and S. 

 aurea. — I followed Reichenbach, 

 Veitch and Sir Joseph Hooker 

 in looking upon these two plants 

 as being, to all intents and pur- 

 poses, identical, but, as a matter of fact, they are quite 

 distinct, and while both are beautiful, the premier place 

 among cultivated species of Spathoglottis must be awarded 

 to S. Kimballiana. It has flowers fully three inches across, 

 the segments thicker than in S. aurea, and the three outer 

 segments (sepals) colored reddish brown at the back ; in 

 S. aurea the flower is uniformly yellow. Then there is a 

 difference in the form of the labellum, the claw of which is 

 broader in S. Kimballiana, and there is also a difference in 

 the crest, which is hairy in S. aurea, glabrous in S. Kim- 

 balliana. Both species grow together, I believe, but they 

 are not difficult to separate even when not in flower, S. 

 Kimballiana having broader and thicker leaves than S. aurea. 

 Disa Hybrids. — The raising of Orchids of various kinds 

 from seeds is now proceeding at a great rate in this coun- 

 try, compared with what was done in this direction a few 

 years ago. At present few Orchid-seeds are sown, except 

 those obtained from crosses ; but I anticipate that when 

 once the method of procedure becomes better known, this 

 means of propagating Orchids will become general. In 

 the principal Orchid nurseries in England there are now 

 hundreds of thousands of young seedling Orchids of many 

 kinds, and it is easy to comprehend the interest, and even 



