THE ORG he view, 
VoL. XIV.] SEPTEMBER, 1906. [No. 165. 
ORCHID-GROWING AND COLLECTING IN JAVA. 
By E. ConneELL, Alas Bezoekie, Loemadjang, Java. 
IF the growing of Orchids in their native habitats is a much simpler process 
than their cultivation in Europe, it is not unattended with drawbacks, if 
pursued on an extended scale. Speaking more particularly of this “land of 
eternal Summer,” Java, there is no close time for insects and other pests. 
Ants, aphis, brown and white scale, caterpillars, snails, green fly, and a 
species of bug which works sad havoc upon Phalenopsis of all kinds, 
are at work from January to December, while a small black ant in 
thousands is to be found on every species, making Vandas, Aérides, and 
Saccolabiums, more particularly, a happy hunting ground. Planting, potting, 
mossing and tying must be done personally, or under close supervision, if 
any measure of success is to be obtained, for the Javanese gardener has no 
appreciation of flowers, plants or Orchids for their own sake, looking upon 
the latter as parasitic useless weeds. 
On the other hand no expensive houses are required, and fogs are un- 
known, unless you can so call a white mist which floats up from the valleys 
occasionally. This is generally accompanied by a fine drizzling rain, and 
is excellent when not an all day performance. Then a collection of native 
sorts is easily acquired, if the cultivator is possessed of any enterprise. Of 
course all parts of Java are not equally prolific, the low, dry and hot jungles 
yielding fewer Orchids of all kinds than the higher, moister, cool slopes. 
At this elevation, 2,700 to 3,500 feet above sea level, in the district of 
Probolingo, East Java, situated, as I am, on an isolated coffee, tea and 
cinchona estate, surrounded by forests and jungles, abandoned Government 
coffee estates, in a cool moist climate, 57° to 80° F., shade temperature, it is 
perhaps an ideal place for the keen collector and lover of plants, ferns and 
local species of Orchids. There, almost at my door, are to be found many 
varieties of Vanda suavis, Arundina speciosa, Bletia amboinensis, 
Cymbidium aloifolium, and ferns, from the tiny filmy kinds up to 
Angiopteris erecta, with fronds over ten feet long, tree ferns in all stages of 
growth, up to magnificent specimens of between twenty and thirty feet, to 
clumps of Dayallia tenuifolia, growing on western slopes, and waysides. 
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