324 THE ORCIUD REVIEW. 
the history of the species back some twenty-two years :—“* CYPRIPEDIUM 
PURPURATUM, var. OBSCURUM:—From Mr. Stone, gardener to J. Day, 
Esq. Imported from Borneo. The plant had faintly blotched leaves, 
notched at the end with a spine-like central tooth. The flowers were 
rather small, the scape villous, the sepals green, veiny, and ciliated 
with short uncoloured hairs; the petals glabrous, fringed with short 
ciliz, dotted with purplish warts below, purplish towards the tips; the 
lip olive-brown. It was thought to be inferior to several other kinds of 
similar aspect already in cultivation.”—Proc. Roy. Hort. Soc., i., p. 246. 
There is also internal evidence that, as on more recent occasions, 
it came home with C. Dayanum, for on the self-same day that species 
was also exhibited by Mr. Stone, and “COMMENDED as a desirable 
and well-marked form of Lady’s Slipper.” It also was ‘“‘stated to be 
a native of Borneo.”—l.c., p. 244. 
These records are interesting, and explain very well why one has 
been lost sight of and not the other. 
mi AL 
MANURE FOR ORCHIDS. 
THE important question of manuring Orchids, which has lately come to 
the front, is not by any means a new one, and the following condensed 
account of some remarks made by B.T.L., in his ‘‘ Orchids for Amateurs,”’ 
in 1885 (Gard. Chron. XXIII., p. 486), may be interesting. 
Practically, ammonia salts are the main source of nitrogen to the great 
majority of plants. Every gallon of rain-water contains about half-a-grain 
ot ammonia salts, and the great agricultural chemist, Liebig, calculated 
that this quantity per gallon is sufficient to nourish a forest of oaks, or any 
other forest trees. No doubt Orchids watered with pure rain-water would 
grow and flourish for years, but I doubt whether the supply of ammonia is 
sufficient for the full development of their powers of growth. Every 
cultivator knows the advantage of giving potted plants some form or other 
of artificial manure, but with epiphytes much difference of opinion prevails 
with regard to its use. Of course, where the sweetness and openness of 
the compost is of the first consideration, the addition of manure or decom- 
posing material in any form is entirely out of the question, so that all 
epiphytes have a very meagre diet. It is clear that manure must not be 
recklessly supplied, as these plants are very delicate feeders. We all know 
how much flowering exhausts the plants, and the production of fine flowers 
is the main object of the horticulturist. There are two methods by which 
Orchids may. be stimulated to growth and flowering by artificial manures, 
and the longer I grow these plants, the more convinced I become that a 
