THE ORCHID REVIEW. 283 
always charms the visitors by its beauty and fragrance. It is perfectly 
natural for this species to have bulbs and leaves of a peculiar yellow tint. 
This also is essentially a basket Orchid, and should be grown in good 
fibrous peat, with little or no moss. Its roots are of a fine, wiry texture, 
soon permeating the peat, which, being of a less decomposing nature than 
moss, keeps sweet and healthy for a longer period. 
Epidendrum nemorale is another elegant and useful Orchid, which does 
well in the Cattleya or Mexican house. Epidendrums ofthis class require a 
good deal of warmth during the growing season, and of drought when 
resting. 
Of Cypripediums in bloom, C. Charlesworthii is the best represented, 
and this we know delights in cool or intermediate treatment. 
ODONTOGLOSSUM CRISPUM. 
THE long period that has elapsed before Odontoglossum crispum Prince 
of Wales bloomed, has apparently much astonished many people, and has 
drawn remarks from “ Argus” and Mr. Robert Thompson (O. R., Aug. 
1898, pp. 229-244). I can in three other instances corroborate this. Two 
were imported plants that I examined most carefully, which carried every 
bulb from the smallest seedling’s first bulb to the largest. Each plant had 
(curiously enough) eleven bulbs. Neither had ever bloomed, there was no 
broken base of the spike, nor did the bulbs show the groove at the sides, 
which always carries the spike round the widest part. They were both 
very distinct plants and realised too high a figure at auction ; hence my 
non-possession of them. The third example I purchased, in 1884, of Mr. 
Sander. This plant had also eleven bulbs and had never bloomed ; it came 
from a district that does not produce grand crispums, but many fine 
hybrids. I have the plant still, and it has not bloomed yet ; its habit has 
not been healthy since importing (though two of its partners do well by its 
side, dividing and growing equally well) as it never carries more than two 
years’ growth, always managing to allow its three-year-old bulb to decay 
before the present young growth is developed; it has three leads now, 
whereas, when it came over, it had but one. I have no doubt that there are 
many such cases to be found if records are carefully kept. Odontoglossum 
crispum, like all things, has its great exceptions that prove the rule. 
There is a time, no doubt, at which each plant is in a condition to 
bloom. It is peculiar, of course, that one should stay so long before it 
blooms, when thousands may have come and gone from the same houses. 
In this instance of the ‘‘ Prince of Wales,” it may be that Clapton did not 
suit it; but, immediately it went to Enfield, it bloomed. Of course, this 
