ORCHIDS. 



19 



pefafure, 60° by night, up to about 70° or 7o° by 

 day; indeed, unless this house faces the north, it 

 will be found sometimes extremely difficult to keep 

 it sufficiently cool. Winter temperature, 45° or 50° 

 by night, up to about 60° by day. 



Our readers will quite understand that these figures 

 are not intended as hard and fast lines, but are simply 

 given as a general guide. There is no royal road to 

 the cultivation of Orchids, and nothing but practice 

 will enable the cultivator to arrive at success. By 

 constant attention and careful observation, the eye 

 will soon detect any falling ofE in health of a parti- 



2 



cular plant ; and the snuggest and warmest comer, 

 or a more airy situation, as the requirements may be, 

 will soon "be found for it, the reward of which will 

 be increased vigour in the previously sick plant. 



Arrangement of Orchid-houses.— The pre- 

 vailing fashion is to devote a house or houses to 

 the cultivation of Orchids exclusively, but this prac- 

 tice, taking into consideration the natural habits of 

 the plants, we consider entirely erroneous. Orowing 

 as they do, surrounded by the luxurious tropical 

 vegetation, many of them high up in the branches 

 of the forest trees, why are they, when brought to 

 this country, deprived of the company of other 

 plants ? Indeed, there cannot be the slightest doubt 

 that other plants with thinner leaves tend to produce 

 an atmosphere more congenial to the requirements 

 of Orchidaceous plants than it is possible to produce 



in an artificial manner when they are grown by 

 themselves. It does not require much thought or 

 practice to become fully aware that it would be 

 extremely difficult to cultivate Orchids in our stoves 

 with a general collection of plants, but the effect 

 of an Orchid-house is greatly improved by the intro- 

 duction of some of the slender-stemmed Tree Ferns 

 from the tropics ; also by some of the beautiful- 

 leaved climbing Aroids, which may be trained to 

 cover pillars and rafters. These latter plants are 

 not much infested with insects, and, being so 

 amenable to the pruning-knife, can always be kept 



within proper bounds ; then the curious and beau- 

 tiful genus of Nepenthes, or Pitcher Plants, of which 

 we have now so many choice forms, are fine adjuncts, 

 either as basket plants or trailed up the rafters. 

 Indeed, there is no lack of material. Such plants 

 as small-growing Palms, of which Geonoma, Cocos, 

 ChamEedorea, Rhaphia, &c. &c., produce many speci- 

 mens of great beauty, are admirably adapted for the 

 purpose. Standing up above the Orchids, their 

 graceful leaves form a genial shade, and, as their 

 stems are so slender, no obstruction is formed to the 

 full view of the beautiful flowers below. These 

 plants we should confine to the ornamentation of the 

 East Indian House, and recommend vines to be 

 grown in the Brazilian House, but not planted eo 

 close as in an ordinary vinery, treated upon the spur 

 system, and the leaves kept thinned. Under tii'-se 

 conditions the vines -^dll produce a good crop of 



Flower of an Orchid. {Phaloenopsis Schilleriana.) 

 1, Tlie sepals ; 2, petals ; 3, labellum or lip ; 4, the column. 



