THE ORCHID REVIEW. i 4 i 



providing a home for ants, as the allied Gongora, and Oncidium altissimum, 

 and it is easy to see how the Orchids benefit by the arrangement. In the 

 -case of Diacrium bicornutum and the Schomburgkias the Orchid provides 

 hollow pseudobulbs for the ants to live in, and then the benefit to the insect 

 becomes equally obvious. 



In a chapter entitled " Up in the Trees," Mr. Rodway has given a most 

 graphic account of the epiphytes of Guiana. He states that the gloom of 

 the forest is so great that very few plants exist on the ground, and in order 

 to see the representatives of the pretty wood flora of temperate climes we 

 must look overhead. In the recesses of the forest there is nought but bare 

 trunks and leafless bush ropes. Even the epiphytes want light, and cannot 

 exist without it, and where this precious influence is obtainable, they crowd 

 every branch and twig, almost to the ground, and carry on the struggle for 

 life right up to the tree tops. Monster arums twelve feet in diameter 

 occupy the great forks, and throw down long cord-like aerial roots. Push- 

 ing those cords aside, the plants are barely discernible on account of the 

 crowd of other epiphytes which surround them. Screens of creepers with 

 festoons of handsome flowers, masses of Rhipsalis, pendulous branches of 

 grass-like ferns, and a thousand epiphytes on every branch, obscure the 

 view, and make it hard to say from whence a particular aerial root is 

 •derived. Some branches are occupied by dense rows of Tillandsias, which 

 push everything else aside and take possession of the upper surface, where 

 their vase-like circles of leaves form reservoirs of water against the timj 

 when little or no rain falls, which reservoirs are utilized by the beautiful 

 Utricularia Humboldtii. Hardly a twig is free from epiphytes unless the 

 gloom is too great, and these plants vary greatly in the amount of light 

 they require. Some grow on the shady side of the trunks, and never see 

 the sun, others exist and thrive in places where we might expect them to be 

 burnt up. Among the mosses and hepaticae grow tiny Orchids with almost 

 microscopic flowers. 



Some plants can only grow upright on the branches, while others with 

 creeping rhizomes can grow almost anywhere. And there are others which 

 only seem to grow on the edge of the branches, and among them some of 

 the most beautiful Orchids. Doubtless at one time they grew upright, but 

 from the continual pressure of circumstances they have become perfectly 

 fitted to their environment. As examples of this aie mentioned Brassia 

 Lawrenceana, Stanhopea eburnea, Gongora atropurpurea, and the remark- 

 able Scuticaria, a plant which seems to have reached the highest point of 

 •development on this particular line. 



The study of epiphytes in their native surroundings is a fascinating 

 subject, and the fact that they can exist in the way that many of them do 

 shows a marvellous power of development in some past age. They are for 



