266 THE ORCHID REVIEW. [SEPTEMBER, 1906. 
as cream white, and the blotches as deep red-brown, with some yellow on 
the crest of the lip. ©. hastilabium, as is well known, is a rather tall 
robust plant, and, as both parents bear numerous flowers on the 
inflorescence, the hybrid should develop into an imposing thing when the 
plant becomes strong. 
CALENDAR OF OPERATIONS FOR SEPTEMBER. 
By J. M. Brack, Streatham. 
ODONTOGLossuMS.—The big job this month will be the repotting of 0. 
crispum, and other cool-house Odontoglossums, which have the new 
growths well started, and which are evidently in want of a change. Plants. 
that were repotted in the beginning of the year should not require dis- 
turbing, nor yet should a great many of those which were last repotted in 
the autumn of 1905. Any plants that were put into very small pots in the 
spring, and seem to be in want of a larger pot, can be transferred without 
much root disturbance, by potting the ball intact, but plants that are really 
in want of repotting because the material has become exhausted should 
have all the old compost shaken clean away from the roots. It is well 
known that repotting shakes the constitution of a plant for a time, but itis 
a good maxim to do the job thoroughly or leave it alone. In repotting 
healthy plants there will always be found a lot of healthy roots, whether 
the compost be exhausted or not, but one must not be led away by this and 
induced to repot the ball into a bigger pot, excepting where the ball is a 
very small one and in sweet, good condition.. Plants which I have repotted 
from time to time without shaking the old material away, have rarely been 
satisfactory, having at the next repotting no roots in the old ball at al, ; 
being all outside it and round the sides of the pot in the fresh material. 2 
This repotting of the ball in its entirety should be indulged in very 
sparingly, and might be confined altogether to small plants; if large plan's : 
are treated in this way, one gets out of all reasonable bounds with the si : 
of the pot—although this is a minor matter compared to the danger of 
having a large lump of stagnating material buried in its centre. 2 
We keep on using the expressions ‘‘ worn out” and “ exhausted 
when speaking of the material that has been in a pot for some time, but 
these expressions, although comprehensive enough, are hardly correct ; 
When a material decays it need not on that account be nutritively i 
exhausted, for, as a matter of fact, decay is a first essential to assimilation 
by the plant; but, although little plant food may have been gee 
- extracted from the compost since it was first used, the plant becomes . : 
of it eventually. It is the mechanical properties of the potting we 2 
collapsing under decay which necessitates most potting of Orchids, whit : 
is quite a different thing from food exhaustion. 
