THE ORCHID REVIEW. 199 
DIES ORCHIDIANZA. 
Last November Mr. Burberry called attention to the difficulty of obtaining 
information respecting the habitat of a new Orchid, and the value such 
knowledge would be to the cultivator, who could immediately turn it to 
practical account. Such information undoubtedly affords a clue to the 
treatment required, and I am therefore the more pleased to see Mr. R. 
Moore’s interesting account of the Orchids of the Shan States in your last 
issue, and the useful details it contains. Considering the kind of informa- 
tion which is often given, it comes as a welcome surprise, which I should 
like to see repeated. It is also interesting to have a list of the showy 
species which grow in the district. We now learn that Mr. Moore is the 
discoverer of the beautiful Cypripedium Charlesworthii, and the information 
given respecting its habitat practically completes its history. Seldom has 
a new Orchid leapt so quickly into fame, and become so universally diffused 
in cultivation as this lovely Cypripedium, and Mr. Moore must be 
congratulated, not only on its introduction—which is certainly one of 
the events of recent years—but also on his having now given us some 
definite information respecting its history. 
I note’a rather curious fact in connection with the Royal Horticultural 
Society’s prize for the best hybrid of the year. Last year it was taken by 
Phaius xX Owenianus, a seedling from P. bicolor, and this year by P. X 
Cooksonie, a seedling from P. grandifolius, in each case the beautiful 
Phaius Humblotii being the pollen parent. The coincidence is rather 
remarkable, and I think indicates that hybrids Phaiuses, particularly those 
partly derived from the Madagascar species just mentioned and the allied 
P. tuberculosus, will occupy an important place in our collections in future. 
The competition for the best hybrid Orchid at Manchester was also 
curious, as the new Leelio-cattleya x Aphrodite—admittedly a young 
seedling in undeveloped condition—secured the first prize, and the old 
Cypripedium x cenanthum superbum the third. The Gardeners’ Chronicle 
says that considering the great stir made about hybrid Orchids, it is 
remarkable that special prizes offered for them in London and elsewhere 
have not as yet brought forth competition of any great interest. It must, 
however, be remembered that they must be new, and it is hardly likely that 
a large number of novelties will flower at the same time and enter into 
competition. With respect to Manchester surely there must have been 
some misapprehension among exhibitors. It is true that the Schedule did 
not specify that the hybrid must be new, but that was obviously the 
_ intention of the framers, and must have been so generally understood by 
exhibitors, or a very different competition would have resulted. I would 
