The Culture of Greenhouse Orchids 



Pleione. (A sea-nymph.) 



This genus of orchid is one of the few which 

 has acquired an English name somehow ; gardeners 

 call it the " Indian crocus," not altogether un- 

 reasonably. Pleiones do not find the attention 

 which is their right. There is no display the year 

 round at Kew more brilliant than that they offer 

 in their season, which — another merit — is commonly 

 in the dull months. But flowers, like books, have 

 their fate, as the Latin proverb says. Pleiones are 

 not fashionable. 



Of course, there is a reason, and one not hard to 

 discern. Since the flowers have no leaves to set 

 them off, they must stand quite close together, or 

 there will be ugly gaps. That is scarcely an 

 objection if all the bulbs grow properly, for each 

 will bloom. But a busy gardener is apt to over- 

 look plants which may be j)ut anywhere out of 

 sight to rest when the leaves have died down. 

 Too often he does not notice the flower peeping 

 beside the withered bulb — not from the top. It 

 demands water imperatively then, fails to receive 

 it, and withers. So the earliest blooms are lost, 

 and those ugly gaps follow of necessity. 



Pleiones are so easily grown that one may say 

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