THE ORCHID REVIEW. 247 
acquiring cultural knowledge with many other Orchids is still a large one. 
Fifty years ago Orchid growing was really in its infancy, and many tolerably 
easy growing species we read dwindled and died a premature death, owing 
to their simple requirements not then being understood. Now-a-days many 
of the very kinds that were then thought difficult grow freely enough, 
because we understand them better, and we can now grow and flower many 
of the most beautiful year after year, and at the same time increase them in 
size. But it is not so with D. Wardianum. True one can propagate an 
immense number of small plants, and so perpetuate its existence in that 
manner for an indefinite period, but to maintain that beautiful picture of a 
newly imported plant when growing for the first and second season is quite 
another matter. That sturdy, vigorous, healthy looking growth they are 
wonted then to send forth is not lasting, and I am afraid that it never will 
be so. [Not until its natural conditions can be better imitated.—Ep.] 
Let no new grower be misled, and take too much credit upon himself for 
his success with newly imported stuff, for there are several other species 
that are like the foregoing. Dendrobium Maccarthie, D. Devonianum, 
Cattleya citrina, Oncidium Phalenopsis, Vanda ccerulea, and Odonto- 
glossum Londesboroughianum, can be mentioned as being amongst those that 
are apt to give trouble to keep in healthy free flowering condition, and to 
increase in size. These, like D. Wardianum, are truly no new species with 
which we and our predecessors likewise have had no experience. Surely by 
this time the best artificial treatment should be known, and yet we can 
boast of no universal success. I acknowledge that it is sometimes recorded 
of this or that plant doing well in certain places and under certain conditions, 
which we should at all times endeavour to imitate as nearly as possible, 
but I have never yet heard of a Vanda ccerulea growing on and on into an 
immense specimen, like we frequently see Vanda suavis, nor of a Dendrob- 
ium Wardianum growing like D. nobile, a plant of which a correspondent 
tells me he has had for nearly fifty years, and has stocked all his neighbours 
with propagated plants. No! and I have but little hopes of hearing it. Is 
it not a fact that Thunia, that good-natured genus which is as hard to kill 
as a weed, grows in company in its native habitat with Dendrobium 
Wardianum? In such a case one would think that the treatment for one 
would suit the other, and that both would prosper and be equally happy. 
But isit so? The difference must be constitutional, hence my conclusion. 
[It does not by any means follow that two plants which inhabit the 
same district grow under identical conditions. One may be terrestrial, the 
other epiphytic, as in the examples just mentioned, and identical treatment 
must necessarily end in failure for one or the other. We firmly believe that 
every case of failure arises from the essential natural conditions either 
being misunderstood or imperfectly imitated in our Orchid houses at 
home.—Ep.] 
