THE ORCHID REVIEW. $59 
attention many are fairly easy to cultivate, neglect for a short time may 
bring about their loss. Still he advises Orchid growers to give them a 
greater share of attention, even if that be confined to the careful cultivation 
of the few little curiosities which from time to time fall into their hands by 
being imported on masses of showier Orchids. In this way some few 
collections, whose owners formerly held inconspicuous Orchids in contempt, 
now contain interesting and valued groups of them. Above these considera- 
tions, too, for one who cares for singular waifs and strays of Orchid life, 
there is the knowledge that he is contributing in some degree to the cause 
of science. For out of such chance arrivals many a new genus OF species 
has been recorded and described, and a still larger number of those 
previously described have by their appearance in gardens supplied herbaria 
with coveted material. 
Perusal of any botanical work on Orchids discloses the fact that many 
species are not in cultivation, and any of them may appear at any time, if 
only as one or two specimens. Many of the showier genera have modest 
representatives among them, and others are largely composed of what are 
often called botanical curiosities, all of which have interesting structural 
peculiarities, and some of them are a source cf wonder to those who see 
them for the first time, and of lasting interest to those who care to make a 
study of them. 
Orchids might challenge comparison with any natural order in the 
beauty, colour, and diversity of their flowers, and a collection should 
properly aim at embracing representations of the various tribes, sub-tribes, 
- and genera, and not a selection of the showy ones only. It might be said 
that it did not pay to import the smaller and less conspicuous species, how- 
ever strange or beautiful they may be, but the additional cost of including 
a few of them with importations of the showy kinds would be small, and 
collectors would greatly add to the personal, as well as the scientific, interest 
of their collections by including in them the small and less showy genera. 
Of the Dendrobiums probably not more than half are in cultivation, and 
the same applies to Cirrhopetalum, many of which are striking and beauti- 
ful, and-some very remarkable in structure. C.*Meduse has the sepals so 
much distended as to give the spike the appearance of ahead of long dis- 
levelled hair, causing Lindley to remark :—‘‘ Certainly, if ever there was a 
Medusa, this must be the prototype before her beautiful tresses were changed 
into serpents.” The large plant now at Burford came originally from Lady 
Dorothy Neville’s collection about the year 1878. Three species of this genus 
had. even received the award of a F.-c.C. from the R. H. S., namely, C. 
Rothschildianum, C. ornatissimum, and C. robustum. Of C. Mastersianum 
a noted Orchidist had remarked that the umbrella-like spread of its brown 
satiny sepals reminded him of a Lilliputian belle. The upper sepal and 
