HORTlCULTURAt SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



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SL Cucumber, and several very fine £:reenhouse plants, amoni^ which 

 \^as a beautiful plant of Luculia gratissima. This charming 

 species, whose perfume is of the most grateful kind, and whose 

 broad heads of flesh-coloured flowers rival those of the Hydrangea, 

 was imported some years ago, but has gone very much out of 

 cultivation in consequence of an erroneous statement that it is 

 hardv. That is not the case, nor was it ever probable that the 

 plant would bear an English winter, for it is only on the smaller 

 and lower mountains of Nepal that it is met with in a wild 

 state ; as on the naked rocks of Xag-L'rjoon, Bechiako, and 

 Koolakan, and on the Pundua hills on the frontier of Sylhet j in 

 those places it is said to form a tree from 1 6 to 20 feet high, 

 with a stem 6 inches in diameter. As it flowers all the year 

 round, this is a most desirable plant for a conservatory, of 

 as a shrub of the open border, during the warmer months of 

 summer. 



From Mr. Peter Don, Gardener to James Bateman, Esq., spe- 

 cimens of four kinds of Epiphijtal Orchidacea ; viz. 1. a new- 

 species of Maxillaria from Honduras ; 2. Bolbophyllum caseum 

 of Manilla, a little brown-flowered species, named from its 

 smelling strongly of cheese ; 3. Lcelia albida, a new Mexican 

 plant, with flowers rivalling the Cowslip in their fragrance, and 

 4. the rare and heiiuUt'ul Epidendrum Skinneri. Concerning the 

 latter, Mr. Bateman communicated the following note. 



" The exquisite beauty of the flowers of Epidendrum Skinneri, 

 and the season at which they are produced, render the plant one 

 of singular interest to the lovers of Orchidaceae ; unfortunately, 

 however, it has universally been found extremely difficult to 

 manage. Its flower-spikes, it is true, w^ere always forthcoming, 

 even from the weakest shoots, but the number of flowers which 

 they bore grew less and less each successive season, until at 

 length in too many instances the plant perished altogether. 



" The cause of this ill success in its cultivation was obviously 

 owing to the difficulty in preserving its thick fleshy roots from 

 decay : for many were uniformly lost if the plant was kept in a 

 high and damp temperature, or if they came in contact with the 

 masses of turfy peat, in which the majority of Orchidaceae 

 thrive. Having learnt from Mr. Skinner, that the plant was 

 usually found at a considerable elevation, and remembering 

 those very plants, when first imported, were quite interwoven 

 with a number of thorny twigs, 1 determined to try whether by 

 placing a plant of the species for half the year in a vinery, and 

 attacliing it to a sort of basket work, formed of small oak 

 branches, I could not restore it to its pristine health. The spike 

 now sent for exhibition, which is double the strength of the one 

 which the same plant produced last year, is the haj)py result of 

 my experiment." 



From M. Ren^ Langelier, nurseryman at St. Heliers, Jersey, a 



