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tion of beir 



222 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 



L^ELIA GRANDIFLORA AT BRIDGE HALL. 



In our last volume we published an account, of the culture of Laelia 

 grandiflora (majalis) in the collection of O. O. Wrigley, Esq., Bridge Hall, 

 Bury, accompanied by a photograph of a group (page 265). Mr. Rogers 

 now writes that this year they have done much better, thirty growths 

 having flowered on the fifteen plants they now have, and several of the 

 spikes being twin-flowered. Not a single plant has failed to flower this 

 season. Three finely-developed flowers are sent, which enable one to 

 realise to some extent what the effect must have been when all were 

 together, the blooms being more than twi< 

 illustration was taken. Those who do n< 

 species should study the cultural details giv 



CATTLEYA ROEZLII. 



The question whether this plant is a natural hybrid or not was discussed 

 some time ago (Orch. Rev., ix., p. 253), and now a flower kindly sent by 

 M.J. Ragot, Villenoy, France, from the very plant which called forth the 

 remarks of M. Otto Ballif, will, I hope, enable the matter to be settled. 

 The history of the plant has already been given. In the flower sent I 

 cannot find a single essential feature of C. Mossiae ; the characters are 

 entirely those of C. Lueddemanniana, often cultivated under its later name 

 of C. speciosissima, a plant which I believe can always be identified in the 

 actual flower by the marked characters of the lip. It is darker in tint than 

 the coloured plate given in the Revue Horticole (1888, p. 572), which may 

 only be a form of the same variable Cattleya, though M. Bleu thought it 

 intermediate in character. Some of the essential characters are not shown 

 in the plate. If it is the original C. Roezlii of Reichenbach, of which 

 Roezl is said to have introduced " 6,000 plants at once," we may dismiss 

 the idea of its being a natural hybrid entirely. Whether a natural hybrid 

 between C. Mossiae and C. Lueddemanniana actually exists is a much wider 

 question., Roezl indicates C. Mossiae as growing much further east than 

 C. Roezlii, but C. Lueddemanniana seems to have been unknown to him, 

 which is quite explicable on the theory that Roezlii is Lueddemanniana. 

 And no author, so far as I can find, has shown that the two species in ques- 

 tion grow together. Even the supposed natural hybrids between them are 

 said to have come from Brazil, which only shows how vague most of the 

 information is. M. Ragot has shown his interest in the question by 

 forwarding the flower, and I hope someone will inter-cross the two species, 



