﻿July, 190*] 



THE ORCHID REVIEW. 



ORCHIDS AT ROSEFIELD, SEVENOAKS. 



Seven years have elapsed since we had the pleasure of seeing the very 

 interesting collection of De Barri Crawshay, Esq., situated at Rosefield, 

 Sevenoaks, and much has happened in the interval. Seedling Odonto- 

 glossums are now to the fore. At the period mentioned we wrote : — " Mr. 

 Crawshay has twenty-eight seedlings in various stages, representing 

 several distinct crosses (0. R., v., p. 265). These— or the survivors— have 

 since flowered, and been recorded, and at the present time there are hun- 

 dreds, if not thousands, of others, of various sizes, and rarely have we met 

 with a more striking example of progress in a proverbially difficult group. 

 It was with the object of seeing this development that we accepted Mr. 

 Crawshay's invitation to spend a week end with him, and we were both 

 pleased and surprised at what we saw. 



The Seedling House. 

 We entered the house in which the seedlings are grown, and were con- 

 fronted with a batch of eight hundred plants, representing numerous crosses, 

 all potted off, and looking as thriving and health}- as possible. Some of 

 these had ahead}- nice little bulbs, and had progressed about half way to 

 the flowering stage. Others are smaller, and some recently pricked off, 

 while on numbers of established plants suspended from the roof were batches 

 of young seedlings, some germinating and others protruding their first leaf. 

 In some cases they were coming up almost as thickly as the proverbial 

 mustard and cress. And not only were they on the surface of the compost, 

 but in some cases literally on the pots, where the seeds had been acci- 

 dentally blown and afterwards germinated. In one case we noticed quite a 

 batch growing below the rim of the pot, and had the curiosity to count 

 them. In a small space three inches long by half an inch broad there were 

 over thirty, and examination with a lens showed that they were securely 

 anchored by little clusters of root hairs, while the first leaf was protruding 

 in the usual way. Others were scattered about singly, so that the pots had 

 to be handled with care for fear of crushing them. The green algse on the 

 pots seems to suit them, and one was actually seen growing on a small slimy 

 mass as if it rather liked it. Algae have sometimes been reckoned as among 

 the worst foes of germinating Orchids, and the sight came as a surprise. In 

 face of such a development it is difficult to realise how it was that Odon- 

 toglossums acquired the character of being difficult to raise from seed, and 

 yet that is everybody's experience — even Mr. Crawshay's — at least until 

 comparatively recently. It will interest a wide circle of readers to know 



How Seedling Odontoglossums are Raised. 

 We will commence by sowing the seed, for the operation of crossing is well 

 understood, and capsules of good seed are easily obtained. As soon as the 



