32 
2S Se, 
Q 
o Che Orchid Review & 
on Vor. AXV. JULY, 1917. No. 295, ; 
ee OUR NOTE BOOK. ES 
HE appearance of an albino of Lelia lobata, as recorded on page 155, 
is an interesting matter, and the curious thing is that it has crept into 
cultivation, as it were, unobserved, and under a wrong name, which would 
hardly have been possible had the real status of the plant been known. The 
history of the species is also given, and, considering that it first flowered in 
cultivation as much as seventy years ago, it is curious how little is 
known about it. The late Louis Forget, whose work as a collector naturally 
gave him facilities for observation, states that the species ‘‘ is found on the 
Gavea, principally at Sapiatoba and Cabo Frio, near Rio de Janeiro, where 
it grows in touch with Cattleya Forbesii, C. guttata, and C. intermedia” 
(O.R., xx. p. 293), and this is the most definite information that we know 
of. Here is the one station known to Messrs. Veitch, though they speak of 
itas ‘believed to spread over parts of Southern Brazil.” There is one 
other vague record of Sao Paulo, from a garden source. Perhaps some of 
our Brazilian correspondents may be able to give some more definite 
particulars. 
There are other popular garden Orchids of which the details of habitat, 
and the conditions under which the plants grow naturally, are very meagre, 
and now that novelties are chiefly raised in our collections at home the 
reasons for secrecy no longer apply, and we hope that the missing details 
will be gradually forthcoming. They form an important part of the history 
of any species, and the information would often be useful to the cultivator, 
who in any case likes to know something about the plants he grows. To 
those who take an interest in the origin of species and their distribution 
over the earth’s surface such details are, of course, essential, for species 
bear a very definite relationship to each other, and each has its own 
geographical area, more or less extended or circumscribed according to 
the existence of barriers to dispersal and its means of surmounting 
them. A mass of useful information of this kind would be available if the 
experiences of some of our active Orchid collectors could be published, and 
we believe that some of it exists in the shape of private correspondence and 
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