( '44) 



In compartment A is the collection of the pineapple 

 family. These are mostly plants which live on the trunks 

 and branches of trees in tropical forests, and are there- 

 fore called epiphytes, signifying plants growing upon 

 other plants; many of them are exceedingly beautiful 

 in foliage and in flower; the so-called Florida moss, or 

 Spanish moss, clothes the trees of the live-oaks in the 

 southern Atlantic States, and is not a moss at all, but a 

 plant bearing small flowers which show its relationship 

 to others of this family. The pineapple itself, doubtless 

 the most familiar member of this group, has been culti- 

 vated in tropical regions for an indefinite period for fruit, 

 and is not certainly known in the wild state; the pineapple 

 fruit is the ripened bunch of flowers which forms at the 

 top of the stem; the plant is propagated by cutting off the 

 tuft of leaves, which is found on the top of the fruit, and 

 by suckers which sprout from the side of the plant near the 

 ground; it is an exception to the tree-loving habit of most of 

 the family, in growing on the ground, and is cultivated in 

 the Bahamas and on the Florida Keys, often in very rocky 

 soil. One of the very spiny-leaved species, Bromelia 

 Pinguin, is widely utilized as a hedge plant in the West 

 Indies. Other genera to be found here are: Tillandsia 

 and Friesia, in many species; Guzmania; Aechmea; Pit- 

 cairnia; Hohenbergia; Cryptanthus; and Billbergia. 



In compartment B are those which require very humid 

 and hot conditions for their successful cultivation; such 

 a house is called an East Indian or stove house. Here the 

 larger and more interesting of the genera represented are: 

 Catasetum, of American distribution; Dendrobium, a large 

 group of the Old World; Coelogyne, of large representation, 

 also in the Old World; Paphiopedilum, the Venus-slipper, 

 an Old World representative of the group containing our 

 lady-slippers, Cypripedium; Peristeria elata, of Panama, 

 the Holy Ghost or dove orchid; Fanda, widely distributed 

 in the East Indies and Malay Archipelago, many of them 

 with large and showy, often sweet-scented, flowers; An- 



