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Tlie class of Orchids to which our present subject belongs, is one of the most 

 useful for the decoration of our Orchid houses and exhibition tables, as they are free 

 growing and profuse blooming plants, the flowers being also of long duration. 

 Cypriiwdium calurum of which we now present our readers with a portrait is a 

 continuous flowering variety, for as soon as one blossom dies off another appears, 

 and so on until the spike has exhausted itself; and then when the new (growths 

 are made, fresh flower spikes appear, after the manner of C. Sedenii. It is a hybrid 

 between C. longifoUum and C. Sedenii, the latter itself being a hybrid between 

 C. longijolium and C. Schlimii, and was raised by the Messrs. Veitch & Sons, of 

 Chelsea, to whom we are indebted for the opportunity ' of preparing our drawing, and 

 who have a most wonderful lot of these beautiful hybrid Cypripediums, some others 

 of which we hope to figure in due time. 



Cypripedium calurum is an evergreen species of graceful habit, with lono- archino- 



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bright green foliage. The flower spikes are branched, several flowers appearing at 

 the same time. They are large and handsomely coloured, the dorsal sepal reddish- 

 green striped with pale purplish- crimson, the petals also pale crimson darkening 

 towards the tip to a rich crimson, and having one ereen vein down the centre: 



the exterior of the lip is deep crimson, the inside greenish white, spotted with 

 dull purplish-crimson. Each flower lasts for several weeks in perfection. 



We find this plant does well grown in pots with rough fibrous peat or fibrous 



p 

 loam mixed with some leaf soil, and good drainage. It requires a moderate supply 



of^ water during the growing and flowering season. In fact, these plants may be 

 said to be always growing and blooming, so that they should always be kept 

 moist at the roots, as they have no succulent pseudobulbs to support them. We grow 

 this plant at the cool end of the East India house with other Cypripediums, but 

 it will thrive well in any ordinary stove. It is propagated by dividing the plant 

 when there are several growths; this operation we find it best to perform just as 

 the new growths begin to appear. 



Odontoglossum scepteum.— We feel great pleasure in acknowledging the receipt 

 of a very fine spike of Odontoglossum sceptrum, from the collection of W. McDonald, 

 Esq., Woodlands, Perth. The panicle was eighteen inches in length, and bore 

 seventeen perfectly formed flowers. It must have been cut from a well gro^m 

 specimen. The sepals were large, of a deep chocolate-brown, streaked and margined 

 with yellow; the petals were irregularly lobed at the edge, yellow, blotched with the 

 same colour as the sepals; and the lip was yellow with chocolate-brown on the 

 front part. This is a fine cool-house Orchid, and a native of New Grenada.— B. S. W. 



