142 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [May, 1910. 
Rossii, O. Cervantesii, and O. citrosmum hold their own. Of O. citrosmum, 
especially, at the present time, some excellent spikes are showing from the 
young growths. 
Chysis bractescens and the hybrids are quite at home, their fusiform 
pseudobulbs measuring a foot in length and proportionate in thickness. 
One plant of C. bractescens I have just examined has three separate flower 
spikes from a single growth, containing exactly twenty flowers. It is 
undoubtedly a superb specimen. 
Schomburgkias are rank growers, and they simply delight in the summer 
heat of St. Louis. S. undulata is in flower at the present time, and S. 
tibicinis is bearing several spikes. This is an annual occurrence. I 
remember quite well during my Kew days trying to coax this species to 
flower, exposing it to full sunshine, &c., without success, but here it-is 
suspended in the East Indian House, and is heavily shaded during summer, 
and still it produces its flowers as regularly as the Cypripediums. 
Oncidium iridifolium is also very free flowering, producing them 
indefinitely through the summer, and also its equitant neighbour, O. 
variegatum. The Snail Shell Orchid, Epidendrum pentotis, has an 
extremely long-flowering period, providing the spikes are left on the plant. 
For curiosity I allowed one spike to remain; the first flower opened on 
March 2oth, rgo9, and, using a typical American phrase, “‘it quit” March 
15th, 1910. Various other species are in flower at the time of writing, viz. : 
Cymbidium aloifolium, C. Finlaysonianum, Bulbophyllum fuscum, Poly- 
stachya cerea, Ornithocephalus gladiatus, Cirrhopetalum Lendyanum, 
Sobralia dellense, Epidendrum odoratissimum, E. aromaticum, E. X 
kewense, the-fine E..x ©’Brienianum, Xylobium pallidiflorum,. Diacrium 
bicornutum, Vanilla planifolia, &c. 
I have enclosed a photograph of beans collected from one — of 
Vanilla planifolia, with a single bean of Vanilla Pompona at the top of the 
picture. Vanilla planifolia produced eight hundred flowers last year, and 
four hundred of these were pollinated, the beans taking about ten months to 
materialize. This phenomenal crop has not affected the plant in the least, 
in fact, its compact racemes are being produced even more abundantly than 
the preceding year. It was planted amongst a bed of Bromeliads about 
seven years ago, it then being an ordinary cutting about four feet long. The 
environments being to its liking, viz., heat and moisture, it soon assumed its 
_ epiphytic habit, its long roots hanging down from above and penetrating the 
soil below. During the growing season plenty of liquid manure was given. 
An experiment which I have tried here regarding well established Vanilla 
plants when shy of flowering is to reduce the flow of sap by cutting off say 
two to three feet of the leading growths, or bending them over and tying 
them at the bent portion. Either method will be found satisfactory. The 
