group containing our lady-slippers, Cypripedium. Other 

 plants requiring this treatment are the East Indian Pitcher- 

 plants, Nepenthes, a collection of which will be found here. 

 They are mostly vines, growing naturally on trees, their 

 leaves curiously modified at the ends into hollow structures, 

 provided with lids, and technically known as pitchers, 

 which are often wrongly regarded as the flowers; these 

 pitchers contain water and secrete from their sides a liquid 

 which digests insects that fall or crawl into the pitchers; 

 this form of nutriment is apparently not necessary at all, 

 however, to the growth of the plants; the flowers are small 

 but borne in large clusters arising from the stems and may 

 often be seen in this collection. 



In house 7 is a large collection of orchids requiring cooler 

 and less humid conditions. Large or interesting genera 

 represented here are: Stanhopea, in several species, an 

 American genus, with large odd-shaped flowers in pendu- 

 lous racemes; Epidendrum, a large American genus, ranging 

 from South Carolina and Alabama, through the West 

 Indies and South America; Gongora, also a genus of tropical 

 America; Oncidium, a large genus of tropical America, 

 with a maximum development in South America; Pleuro- 

 thallis, American orchids, usually small, sometimes but a 

 half inch tall, and often forming mats on tree trunks, 

 commonly at considerable elevations. In this house will 

 also be found a large collection of bromeliads, of the pine- 

 apple family, in such genera as Tillandsia, Friesia, Hohen- 

 bergia, Pitcairnia, Cryptanthus, and Aechmea. Other rep- 

 resentatives of this family will be found at conservatory 

 range 1, houses 10 and n. 



Power Houses. Steam for heating the conservatories, 

 range 1, is supplied from the power house, located near the 

 New York Central Railroad just south of the 200th Street 

 entrance and connected with the conservatories by a sub- 

 way about six hundred feet long containing the steam mains ; 

 five boilers are installed and supply steam not only to the 

 conservatories, but also to the museum building through 

 another subway about twelve hundred feet in length. 



