January, 1915.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 31 
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ee ORCHIDS CULTURE IN FLORIDA. les, 
UR American friends have a rather wholesale way of watering their 
Orchids, and a very old correspondent, Mr. T. L. Mead, Oviedo, 
Florida, who has long included a few Orchids among his pets, sends 
us the following :— 
‘“‘] have arranged a Gasoline (petrol) engine pump and over-head spray 
(fine) the whole length of the greenhouse, and also invented an automatic 
stop, so that all I have to do is to crank the engine, and leave it. It turns 
the spray from side to side of the house, and when the engine thinks the 
house is wet enough, it stops of itself! The opinion of the engine is, of 
course, an ‘‘inspired” one, and depends on the length of slack cord 
attached to the electric switch. I know the European practice would 
condemn such uniform watering, but we read that the rain descends upon 
the just and the unjust, and my arrangement imitates the natural distribution 
of rainfall when the plants are at home. Any plant requiring drought can 
be put opposite a plugged nozzle.” 
As regards feeding, he remarks: “All summer I have been giving my 
Phalznopsis Aphrodite and P. Schilleriana plants a pinch of commercial 
fertiliser (intended for garden vegetables) every Sunday. They are 
suspended over a tank of water into which some of their roots dip, and they 
have grown most surprisingly, and are sending up very sturdy spikes.” 
And he concludes: ‘‘ The most interesting Orchid I have flowered was 
a Cattleya Triane x Lelia tenebrosa, the first bloom on a plant just 
seventeen years old.” It will be a form of Leliocattleya Mabel. 
Rees ORCHID NOTES AND NEWS. Aa 
EETINGS of the Royal Horticultural Society will be held at the 
Royal Horticultural Hall, Vincent Square, ‘Westminster, on January 
5th, roth, and February 2nd. The Orchid Committee will meet at the 
usual hour, 12 o’clock noon. 
The Manchester and North of England Orchid Society will meet at 
the Coal Exchange, Manchester, on January 7th, 21st, and February 4th. 
The Committee meets at noon, and the exhibits are open to the inspection 
of members and the public from 1 to 4 p.m. 
HABENARIA HaviLANDII.—A striking Bornean Habenaria has just 
flowered at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, which proves to be 
