36 ORCHIDS. 
CABTEBYA EODDIGESIT. 
Tuts fine variety — represented by Plate No. VIII. — is a 
native of Brazil, and received its name in compliment to Mr. Con- 
rad Loddiges, one of the earliest and most extensive orchid culti- 
vators of the famous Hackney Nurseries, England. 
This variety differs from others, in that the flower-spike, instead 
of bearing a single blossom, has from three to five. It blooms in 
August and September. 
The “London Gardener’s Chronicle ” for April, 1884, contains 
a very surprising account of one of the Cattleyas found in Costa 
Rica. It was the variety known as the S£innerii, and was the 
largest —in fact, the most wonderful — specimen ever seen growing. 
The plant was seven feet in diameter, and six feet high. Gentle- 
men at different times had sought to purchase this monster beauty 
of the natives, but in vain. At length, and but recently, Messrs. 
F. Sander & Co., of the south part of England, offered such a price 
that they became its possessors. The plant grew upon a large 
tree, whose trunk was cut just above and below it. The Cattleya, 
with the block of wood, weighed twelve hundred pounds, and 
M. Roezl counted upon it, at one time, fifteen hundred full blos- 
soms. The whole was safely transperted to Southampton, thence 
to St. Albans, England, where a new house has been built for its 
reception. It is suspended by a chain from the roof centre, where 
multitudes gaze upon the floral wonder with constant delight. 
It is in place here to remark that numbers of the orchid 
amily grow to enormous size, sending up stalks fifteen feet high. 
A few varieties are indeed but pigmies, — measured by a very few 
f 
