OcTuBER, 1906.] THE ORCHID REVIEW. 30 
CALENDAR OF OPERATIONS FOR OCTOBER. 
By J. M. Brack, STREATHAM. , 
THERE will be in flower this month Cattleya labiata and C. Dowiana 
aurea. They are both splendid Cattleyas when in robust health, the former 
being particularly floriferous, and although they are not now so indispens- 
able as autumn bloomers as they were a few years ago—owing to the 
ascendancy of the hybrid—they are still most welcome, and there is a com- 
pleteness and harmony about the flowers of species that a good many 
hybrids lack. There is an indiscribable something in the colour blending 
ofa good many of the hybrid Lzlio-cattleyas that precludes any possibility 
of their being taken for species, something amateurish and indefinite. It is 
only with the colour arrangement that I am finding fault, and what I mean 
is illustrated in most of the Lzlia tenebrosa hybrids. Two very successful’ 
hybrids, in this respect, are Cattleya X Enid and C. X Iris. There should 
be a great future for albino Cattleya hybrids, for—apart from the rarity in 
nature of albino forms of species—the above criticism will not hold good 
with them, the pure white and yellow flowers of the hybrids being equal in 
finish to the species. 
There is a disease—of a fungoid nature, I believe—that affects some 
Cattleyas, and C. labiata and C. Dowiana aurea seem more addicted to it 
than others, as far as my experience goes. An atmosphere saturated with 
moisture and with insufficient ventilation may safely be put down as the 
main cause. It is mostly in the autumn that the trouble makes its appear- 
ance. A dull, blackish streak may be noticed under the cuticle of the leaf 
or bulb. In a little time the leaf may fall off, and if the pseudobulb is om} 
through vertically it will be found that these black streaks run down its 
centre. If one cuts off piece after piece horizontally it will be found that 
the further one descends the less it becomes, which seems to point to its 
having had its origin in the leaf or bulb, and not at the root. Sometimes 
this decay runs right down to the base of the pseudobulb and along the 
thizome, when there is no hope of saving the plant, and in severe cases all 
bulbs will be affected at once. An unhealthy condition at the root may be 
an auxiliary cause of this, but it is not infrequently found that pe ROCKS 
perfectly healthy when the disease is first observed, and if they sar it A 
g0 bad this is evidently the result of and not the cause of the trou e. 
disease of this kind—if I am right in calling it a disease—appearing among 
Plants indicates that something is radically wrong 1m ihe ee ; 
_ Keeping the plants too close at a time when they are hardening - : i 
tissues seems to me to be unquestionally where the error is ms : a : 
never known a plant once attacked with this disease recover, ¥ ue z 
have heard of some. Cattleyas in flower in the autumn should be kep 
