AXB THEIR MANAGEiMENT. 19 



Structure and other Peculiarities. 

 America and Western Mexico, in the damp, tropical parts 

 of India, and in the lower mountains of Nepal, the}- 

 flourish in the greatest \ariety and profusion, not only 

 seeking their nutriment from the soil, but clinging to the 

 trunks and limbs of trees, to stones and bare rocks, where 

 the\' vegetate among ferns and other shade-lo\-ing plants 

 in countless thousands." The Orchids of temperate 

 Australia and New Zealand are chicfl)- terrestrial, as are 

 those of other temperate regions. They have fibrous roots, 

 and often large flesh}- tubers. Those of warmer countries 

 are mainly epiph_\'tes, not parasites, as they are often mis- 

 called. A parasitic plant obtains its nourishment from the 

 tree or plant upon which it grows, as is the case with the 

 mistletoe ; but an epiphj-te merely uses the branch as a 

 support or resting-place, gaining its food from the sur- 

 rounding atmosphere. 



Although small-flowered, and somewhat inconspicuous in 

 stature, our native Orchids are both prettj- and interesting. 

 Differing altogether from the Peru\-ian and IVIexican 

 beauties with which we are more especially concerned, 

 they exemplify almost as thoroughly the extraordinarj- 

 variety in form and colour for which the Order is 

 so remarkable, and if not as strikingly beautiful are b\- no 

 means to be despised, even from an ornamental point of 

 view. 



The knowledge of Orchidecc has grown during the last 

 fifty years at a rate quite disproportionate to that of the 

 rest of the Vegetable Kingdom. Linnaeus only knew about 

 a dozen exotic Orchids, and stated his opinion that the 

 world, when fully examined, might probably }'ield as manj' 

 as a hundred species. Now, at least some thousands are 

 known to English horticulturists, while the number of 

 species in the Order is correspondingly large. 



In colouring, as in odour, Orchids displa}' an almost end- 

 less variety. Their rarest colour is blue, which, indeed, is 

 almost unrepresented in collection.s — save, perhaps, in 

 Vanda ccerulea — although many purples in which blue pre- 

 dominates may be found. Several terrestrial Cape species, 

 however, produce flowers of an intensely sky-blue colour, 

 one of which was on this account appropriately named 

 Herschelia ccelestis by Lindley, in honour of Sir John 

 Herschel, the astronomer. In one or two genera it is the 



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