GLAMORGANSHIRE: NEATH 193 



me. To my great delight he said he had Loudon's " Encyclo- 

 paedia of Plants," which contained all the British plants, and he 

 would lend it to me, and I could copy the characters of the 

 British species. 



I therefore took it home to Bryn-coch, and for some weeks 

 spent all my leisure time in first examining it carefully, find- 

 ing that I could make out both the genus and the species of 

 many plants by the very condensed but clear descriptions, 

 and I therefore copied out the characters of every British 

 species there given. As Lindley's volume had rather broad 

 margins, I found room for all the orders which contained 

 only a moderate number of species, and copied the larger 

 orders on sheets of thin paper, which I interleaved at the 

 proper places. Having at length completed this work for 

 all the flowering plants and ferns, and also the genera of 

 mosses and the main divisions of the lichens and fungi, I 

 took back the volume of Loudon, and set to work with 

 increased ardour to make out all the species of plants I could 

 find. This was very interesting and quite a new experience 

 for me, and though in some cases I could not decide to which 

 of two or three species my plant belonged, yet a considerable 

 number could be determined without any doubt whatever. 



This also gave me a general interest in plants, and a cata- 

 logue published by a great nurseryman in Bristol, which David 

 Rees got from the gardener, was eagerly read, especially 

 when I found it contained a number of tropical orchids of 

 whose wonderful variety and beauty I had obtained some idea 

 from the woodcuts in Loudon's Encyclopaedia. The first 

 epiphytal orchid I ever saw was at a flower show in Swansea, 

 where Mr. J. Dillwyn Llewellyn exhibited a plant of Epiden- 

 drum fragrans, one of the less attractive kinds, but which yet 

 caused in me a thrill of enjoyment which no other plant in 

 the show produced. My interest in this wonderful order of 

 plants was further enchanced by reading in the Gardener's 

 Chronicle an article by Dr. Lindley on one of the London 

 flower shows, where there was a good display of orchids, in 

 which, after enumerating a number of the species, he added, 

 " and Dendrobium Devonianum, too delicate and beautiful for 



