58 
have scarcely seen any one species of this genus Aetnae s i except 
jn a dry state, before the year 1787, when Æ. cochleatum flowered at 
Kew, nor was it till October 1782 that Æ. fragrans, of € exhibited 
its rich and elegant bloom in the ese rich collection. — esent 
` -several species are to be seen flowering in the spring and autu 
In the second edition of the Hortus Kodex: (1813) 115 mmis are 
-enumerated, of which 84 are exotics belonging to 39 genera, “the 
greater number, " John Smith states, in his Records of Kew (p. 228), 
* being epiphytal and natives of the West etae a few of the East 
Indies, Cape of Good Hope, and New South W 
According to the same writer Dr. Roxburgh mine a number of species 
from id) in the early part of the nes century. These, writes John 
Smith, “I found growing in 1822, on a sheif above a flue against the 
‘back vi in what was then called m propagation house ; the — 
growing and flowering uas its aee Pvt n the back wall, a 
also Saccolabium guttatum. ‘Ther e also plants of Dordoka 
Pierardi and D. cucullatum foeni trodls which. iren recently been 
brought home from Calcutta by Mr. Pierard” But it was to Roxbur gh 
that English gardens owed, besides the first pred the first Dendro- 
bium, and the first Vanda. 
These * back walls” are only seldom found in modern horticulturai 
struetares; but they were not without their merits. 
At this period, with dns exceptions above mentioned, the orchids at 
Kew “ were potted in common soil, and the pots plunged to the rim in 
a tan Rea It is not i ‘that "their cultivation was attended with 
little su 
A little Á— ‘than this the first step was taken in the direction of 
modern treatment. Sir Joseph Banks devised and carried out at Isle- 
worth a method which was “one of the most successful modes of 
treating epiphytal orchids then known." Mr. H. J. Veitch, F.TuS., 
in his excellent "gone account of * Orchid en past and present ” 
(Journ. R. Hort. Soc., 1889, xi, pp. 115-126), remarks :—‘ This was 
the first rude Serves ohio our modern orchid basket, and v first 
instance I find recorded of moss being used for mina p. 1 
According to John Smith (Records, pp. 229, 230) :—* bets ihe 
years. 1823 and 1825 a considerable number of ae were received 
from Trinidad, forwarded by Mr. David Lockhart, the superintendent 
of the g garden, amongst which were the first plants of Stanhopea 
insignis, Oncidium Papilio, Pesce Be elegans, (oum tridentatum, 
hers all of which were epiphytal, an 
many of them being sent PINE on portions of bodie as cut HI 
the trees, which being accompanied by instructions from Mr. Lockh 
as to how dE should be treated, led to the successful cultivation a 
epiphytal ore 
A whole renda was, however, to pass away before the culture of 
orchids was placed on an intelligent footing. Dr. Lindley during the 
l. c p. 
Th irteen years date he was ‘substantially ronGwed. by Mr. Bniet: i 
‘except the important direction to give the plants a season of rest” 
él. c. Lie 12 à 
M The cultural treatment approved by een ** became, as it were, the 
ox one, and was generally ersisted in, in ‘all its essential 
ots, for upwards of thirty years," 
