fee HID REVIEW. 
VoL. XI.] JUNE, 1903. [No. 126. 
DIES ORCHIDIANI. 
Can nothing be done to relieve the monotony of the Temple Show? I 
do not allude to the great similarity of arrangement from year to year, but 
to the general all-alike character of the different groups. All, or nearly all, 
are miscellaneous groups, with nothing to break the general monotony. A 
group of Cattleyas and allies only, or Odontoglossums, or hybrids of recent 
years, would be a positive relief, and it would be a very simple matter if it 
were taken in hand properly. Under existing circumstances, if a grower is 
interested in any particular group or genus, or if he wants to get some idea 
of, let us say, progress in hybridisation, he must wander round the whole of 
the Orchid groups, picking out the subjects, here, there, and anywhere, 
and even then he is pretty certain to overlook something, while anything 
like comparison is out of the question. © 
There. was one brilliant exception to this condition of things, and that 
was the beautiful group of Vanda teres from the collection of Leopold de 
Rothschild, Esq. I am not discussing the question of culture—though that 
was excellent—but simply that of arrangement. Just recall for a moment 
the effect of that group, and then imagine how different it would have been 
if the plants had been distributed through the various groups staged. They 
would have been completely lost in the sea of Cattleyas, Odontoglossums, 
and miscellaneous subjects generally, without any compensating advantage, 
and it illustrates my meaning admirably. Here was something on which 
the eye could rest with pleasure, and the same may be said of a few large 
specimen plants, notably of Cattleya Skinneri and Cymbidium Lowianum, 
which were present. Two similar effects were also produced within a larger 
group by massing together a number of hybrid Phaius, and of Lelio- 
cattleya X G. S. Ball, and they caught the eye in a way that would have 
been impossible had they been scattered throughout the groups. 
One could scarcely avoid making a comparison with the recent Ghent 
Show, where the conditions in several respects are so different, and wondering 
what the effect would have been if the wealth of material exhibited at the 
