artificially. During the last few years we have received large importations, amongst 
them are found many new species and varieties, the one we now have the 
pleasure to lay before our readers in the present illustration being one of them. 
We are also now coming to the time when some of the artificially raised hybrids 
at home are beginning to flower, but they are plants which appear to require a 
long time to make flowering growths from seed, they will well repay, however, the care 
and trouble bestowed upon them if due attention be given to the selection of 
parents, for upon this will depend the good or bad results obtained. In the earlier 
days of hybridising Orchids, little attention was paid to this, but the time is too 
long to wait for the development of a useless plant; such a style of cross-breeding 
does not matter so much with soft-wooded plants, which can be flowered in a year 
or two from seed, but when a decade has to be passed before flowering, it becomes 
a serious affair. The plant from which our plate was prepared was kindly sent to us 
from the well-known fine collection of R. Young, Esq., Fringilla, Linnet Lane, 
Liverpool, and it represents a very good form of the species, although it shows but 
one. flower upon each peduncle. 
Lelia Dormaniana is a pretty evergreen plant, compact in growth, with slender, 
terete, stem-like bulbs which are slightly swollen at the base, and from six to 
twelve inches high. The leaves are borne in pairs or in threes from the top of the 
bulbs, and are lanceolate, some five inches long, thick and leathery in texture, and 
rich green. Peduncle short, from one to three flowered, each flower measuring some 
three inches across, the dorsal sepal and the petals nearly equal, the lateral sepals 
larger and falcate, spreading, olive-green tinged with brown, marbled with a 
light vinous purple, and decorated with deep port-wine coloured spots on the 
margins; lip three-lobed, lateral lobes large, quite enclosing the column, rosy crimson 
distinctly veined with purplish crimson, middle lobe very bright purplish crimson. 
The blooms are produced in late autumn and through the months of December and 
January, at which times Orchid flowers are scarce, so that this species becomes exceedingly 
useful; moreover it remains a long time in perfection, for a month or six weeks the 
flowers may be depended upon, either on the plant or when cut and placed in water. 
A single bloom also makes an excellent coat flower or buttonhole backed with a 
green Fern frond; these flowers have particular charms for gentlemen, as they may 
be placed in water after being worn, and brought out again after a day or two, 
having all the brilliancy and novelty of a fresh cut bloom. 
This plant requires the warmth of the Cattleya house, but during the winter 
months, its blooming season, it must not be rested so long as many of the species 
which are quite dormant, moreover its slender growths will not admit of it; we 
have found it to thrive best under just the same treatment as Lelia elegans and its 
varieties, and it will well repay all the care taken of it, by the production of good 
strong growths and flowers in due season. The best time for repotting this species, 
if it is requisite, is just before starting into growth, care being taken that the living 
roots are not injured, but all decayed or decaying ones should be removed with a 
sharp knife. The plants may either be grown in pots or baskets, but in whatever 
way they may be treated, the drainage must be good, and due attention must be 
given that too much material is not placed about their roots. 
