﻿THE ORCHID REVIEW. 



163 



CYMBIDIUM PARISHII VAR. SANDERS. 



At the Royal Horticultural Society's meeting held on May 17th last a 

 handsome Cymbidium was exhibited by Messrs. Sander and Sons, St. 

 Albans, under the name of Cymbidium Sanderae, n. sp., to which the 

 Orchid Committee unanimously awarded a First-class Certificate. On 

 being submitted to Kew I instantly recognised a form of the rare Cymbidium 

 Parishii, Rchb. f., which seems to have been completely lost sight of for 

 some years, and indeed never was common in cultivation. It was originally 

 •described in 1874 (Rchb. f. in Tram. Linn. Sac. xxx., p. 144), and first 

 flowered in cultivation four years later {Gard. Chron., 1878, ii., p. 74). Its 

 early history was given by its discoverer, the Rev. C. S. Parish, as 

 follows :— 



" This was one of my earliest discoveries, having been found by me during 

 my long journey in the distant jungles in 1859. On the same occasion I 

 discovered Dendrobium crassinode and several other good things, but I was 

 so bewildered then at the number of novelties of all kinds that I did not 

 know what to choose, as I could not carry everything. I gathered then a 

 fair quantity of Cymbidium Parishii and of D. crassinode ; I sent them, 

 with many other valuable things, to Mr. Low, the father, with one box 

 meant for Kew ; but all (six large cases full !) were sunk in the Ganges. It 

 was a cruel disappointment, as it was my first collection, a most valuable 

 one; many of the plants I have never met with again. The single plants 

 kept by me to grow died. Hence I lost sight of these two plants for many 



Other plants of the Cymbidium, however, appear to have been subse- 

 quently obtained, for there is a dried specimen at Kew, and on the ticket 

 is written—" Flowered in my garden in 1867 or 8," and also a note that 

 plants were sent to Kew and to Mr. Low. In June, 1878, it flowered in 

 Europe for the first time, in the collections of W. Leech, Esq., Fallowfield, 

 Manchester; J. Day, Esq., of Tottenham ; and with Mr. B. S. Williams. 

 The Fallowfield plant, according to Mr. Swan, produced two spikes, and 

 he added : " I may say that it is a most beautiful thing, fully answering to 

 the description I had with it ; and that it succeeds well in the Cattleya 

 house, giving it in the growing season very copious supplies of water." Mr. 

 Day made an excellent painting of it, and wrote as follows : — " This lovely 

 Cymbidium is at last in flower, and for the first time in Europe. I bought 

 the plant of Messrs. Hugh Low and Co. in May, 1870, being part of the 

 private collection made in Burmah by the Rev. Mr. Parish. He said it 

 was a fine thing, superior even to C. eburneum, which as regards the 

 colours of the lip it certainly is. The plant has been strong enough to 

 ;flower for three or four years, and I have been disappointed every spring 



