282 THE ORCHID REVIEW. 



show a magnificent specimen, bearing six very strong spikes, which 

 Mr. Groves remarks were nearly three feet long, and bore an average of 

 thirty flowers each, the individual blooms being as large as a five shilling 

 piece. Having already illustrated the species, we reproduce our original 

 figure, which will enable anyone to imagine what a specimen bearing six 

 inflorescences is like. The sepals and petals are bright red-brown, and the 

 lip yellow, but the contrast of colour is not so well shown as in the later 

 photograph. Mr. Groves remarks that the plant is doing well, and they 

 have recently had to enlarge the raft to four feet long. It is grown in the 

 Cool House, in sphagnum moss, which is kept constantly wet. This 

 suits it so well that Mr. Groves suspects it to be a bog plant in its native 

 habitat. The plant has been grown to its present size from a small plant 

 imported nine years ago, and Mr. Groves must be congratulated on his 

 success in producing such a noble specimen. It may be added that the 

 flower spikes were not allowed to remain, on the plant very long after 

 arriving at perfection, for fear that the production of so much flower might 

 have a weakening effect. The history of the species is given at the place 

 above cited. 



OBITUARY. 



H. J. Ross. — A well-known Orchidist has passed away in the person ot 

 Henry James Ross, of Poggio Gherardo, Florer.ce, Italy, who died at his 

 residence on July 17th last, at the mature age of 82 years. Mrs. Ross has- 

 kindly acceded to our request to famish a few particulars of her deceased 

 husband's career. Mr. Ross was born in Malta in 1820, and began his 

 career in the East before he was seventeen. He passed four years at 

 Erzeroum, and then went to Mosul, where he helped Mr. (afterwards Sir 

 Henry) Layard to excavate Nineveh. At the close of the Crimean War he 

 was employed by the English Government to sell many thousands of 

 animals collected for our projected campaign in Georgia, and leaving 

 Samsoon on the Black Sea he marched at the head of a column four miles 

 long through Asia Minor, over the Taurus and the Antitaurus to 

 Alexandretta on the Mediterranean. This journey excited considerable 

 interest at the time, and was by some compared to the march of Xenophon 

 and his ten thousand. Afterwards Mr. Ross settled in Egypt, where he 

 remained until 1869, when he went to Italy. The account of his early life 

 will soon be published by Mr. Dent, under the title of " Letters from the 

 East, by Henry James Ross, 1837 to 1857." 



Always passionately fond of flowers, Mr. Ross' Orchid collection began 

 by a friend bringing him some boxes of Orchids from his woods near 

 Mandalay, in Upper Burmah. Among these were a quantity of Vanda 



