THE ORCHID REVIEW. 45 
beautiful Historia Plantarum Rariorum (1728-1735), under the name of 
Helleborine americana (p. 50).. According to Martyn, a dried specimen 
was sent from Providence Island, Bahamas, to Peter Collinson, in 1731, the 
sender not being recorded. Collinson, not despairing of there being life in 
the tubers, sent them to the garden of one Wager, where they were placed 
in a warm bark bed during the winter, and, recovering health, they produced 
flowers during the following summer. Miller also gives a representation of 
the same Orchid in his Figures of the Most Beautiful Plants, in 1760 (t. 145). 
Two of the North American Cypripediums were in cultivation prior to 
1737, when the first edition of Miller’s Gardeners’ Dictionary appeared. In 
that work we find Helleborine virginianum flore rotundo luteo, the Virginian 
Lady’s slipper with yellow flowers, and H. canadensis sive Calceolus Maria, 
the Canada Lady’s slipper; the former apparently representing either C. 
pubescens or C. parviflorum (the description is not. sufficiently explicit to 
say which), the latter C. spectabile. Miller states that plants of them have 
been sent to England, which thrive and produce flowers every year, In the 
second edition of Aiton’s Hortus Kewensis, C. spectabile is said to have beer 
cultivated by Philip Miller before 1731, but C. parviflorum is only mentioned 
as cultivated by him in 1759, while the introduction of C. pubescens is 
ascribed to Sir Joseph Banks in 1790. It is therefore clear that these dates: 
cannot be absolutely relied on. 
The last-named work also records Vanilla aromatica as introduced b 
Miller in 1739, though from Miller’s note it is certain that the species was 
V. planifolia. He received a sample packet, containing pods and branches 
of the plant. The leaves were all rotten, but the stems, appearing fresh, 
were planted in small pots and plunged in a bed of tanner’s bark, and soon 
put forth leaves and roots. The plants are noted as difficult to keep alive 
without their natural support. In his eighth edition, however, published. 
in 1768, he mentions a Vanilla axillaribus, which was sent to him from 
Carthagena in New Spain (New Granada), and flowered in the Chelsea 
garden, but, wanting its proper support, it lived but one year. The flowers 
are described as shaped like those of the Bee Orchis, but longer, the galea 
or helmet of a pale pink colour, and the labia purple. The date is not 
mentioned, nor is it clear which species of Vanilla is intended. 
In 1789 the first edition of Aiton’s Hortus Kewensis appeared, in which 
fifteen exotic species are enumerated as being in cultivation at Kew, besides 
a number of British ones. . They comprise four tropical species, six North 
American, three South African, and two European. We may here enumerate 
them, using their modern names in cases where the ancient ones have been 
superseded. The tropical species are— Bletia verecunda, Epidendrum 
fragrans, E. cochleatum, and Phaius grandifolius ; the North American— 
Cypripedium spectabile, C. acaule, Liparis liliifolia, Calopogon pulchellus, 
Habenaria fimbriata, and Aretbusa bulbosa; the South African—Satyrium 
