338 | THE ORCHID REVIEW. 
ORCHID GROWING AS A HOBBY. 
(Continued from page 206.) 
Earty in the following spring I called on my friend the Doctor again, 
and found unmistakable signs of progress. More of the plants were be- 
coming established, and growths were pushing in all directions. Several - 
spring-flowering Dendrobiums and other plants were in bloom, and gave 
bright patches of colour to the Warm house in which they were, and the 
other departments promised a good display in the course of a few weeks. 
The plants were being well looked after, and insect life evidently found a 
difficulty in establishing itself under the Doctor’s vigilant eye. Some of 
the older plants had been re-potted or top-dressed, just as the young roots 
were beginning to push out, and were now finding their way into thé new 
compost. I think it was on this occasion that I saw a nice spike of 
Odontoglossum * Andersonianum, which had flowered among a batch of O. | 
crispum—one of the surprises which one continually meets with among 
imported Odontoglossums—and there were also two or three examples of 
the fragrant O. gloriosum out of the same batch. 
I made two or three other visits that season, and on each occasion 
found many objects of interest in the collection. Towards the end of the © 
year I noticed two or three young seed pods among the Cypripediums, 
each bearing a small ticket, indicating that hybridizing operations had 
commenced. These, I discovered, were objects of special interest, and we 
speculated upon the chances of their containing good seed, the possibility 
of germinating it, and how long the seedlings would be before they flowered. 
The question what they would be like was not in doubt, for the same 
crosses had already flowered in other collections; but this added to the 
interest of the experiment rather than not, for it showed that success was 
at least possible. Later on these pods ripened, and some of the seeds ap 
peared quite plump when examined under a lens, and they were accordingly 
sown on the compost of some established plants. They were now watched 
with renewed interest, and how many times the lens was called into 
requisition it would be difficult to say. A good many of the seeds ulti- 
mately disappeared, but some gradually assumed a green colour and lost 
the finely reticulated testa, afterwards developing into tiny green globules 
about the size of a large pin’s head, and at length the first tiny leaf ap- ee 
peared and a young root began to push out. Now came the work of : 
pricking off the young seedlings into tiny thimble pots, and a delicate busi- 
ness it was, but at length it was successfully accomplished, and the result 
was surveyed with a considerable amount of satisfaction. They gradually 
progressed, and became thriving little plants, requiring only ordinary at: 
tention and successive shifts into larger pots as additional room WS 
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