186 THE ORCHID REVIEW. (Sepr.-Ocr., 1918. 
species that would be welcome to our collections, so that we may hope to 
see living plants of some of them in due time. It is, we believe, a district 
from which comparatively few Orchids have been introduced of recent years. 
The Orchids of the adjacent State of Costa Rica are also very 
imperfectly known, and we are glad to find that Mr. Lankester is able to 
continue his interesting notes, not only on the plants themselves, but on 
the conditions under which some of them grow. Information of this kind 
is often difficult to obtain, and many an interesting novelty has quickly 
been lost for want of information as to the kind of treatment required. A 
knowledge of the altitude and local conditions are even more important 
than that of the native country itself. It is a little difficult to realise that 
two such nearly allied Lycastes as L. leucantha and L. brevispatha grow 
under such different conditions as those described, but the same thing 
applies to various other genera, the species of which do not all succeed 
when grown together. This applies especially to such familiar genera as 
Oncidium and Dendrobium, and there are Odontoglossums and Masdevallias 
which succeed better if removed from their own respective houses during 
certain seasons of the year, in accordance with what is often spoken of as the 
requirements of the plants. This, of course, means that in a wild state 
they grow under diverse conditions, and it is a knowledge of what these 
conditions are that would enable the cultivator to start with more com 
fidence when dealing with some unfamiliar plant. 
The number of Mexican and Central American species already known 
was estimated by Mr. Hemsley, in the Biologia Centrali-A mericana, as over 
goo, belonging to 105 genera, but many doubtless remain to 
discovered, for some districts have as yet been very imperfectly explored. 
Many of the species are believed to be extremely local, though a few, 
especially those from the lower elevations, occur also in the adjacent parts 
of Tropical America and the West Indies. How many of the species have 
been in cultivation it would be difficult to say, but the number at present 
in collections cannot be large, so that there is plenty of room for a revival 
in the culture of these interesting plants. 
Two or three interesting questions are raised by the study of the British 
Marsh Orchises, which is reported at pp. 162-166, one of which 1s as to 
whether, apart from hybridity, Orchis latifolia occurs anywhere with 
spotted leaves. It is quite clear that the name primarily belongs the 
Marsh Orchis with broad, unspotted leaves, in other words, to the on 
recently described as O. preetermissa, but instead of this being “ hitherto 
overlooked,” as the name implies, it can be traced back for a period of ove 
