﻿THE ORCHID REVIEW. 



[August, 1904. 



by Mr. R. Nisbet, Byrkley Gardens, Burton-on-Trent, which received an 

 Award of Merit from the Manchester and North of England Orchid Society 

 in 1901. The flowers have an expanse of nine inches across the petals, and 

 all the organs of the flower are correspondingly well developed. 



DENDROBIUMS AT WEYBRIDGE. 



It may be remembered that last spring a magnificent group of 

 Dendrobiums from the collection of W. A. Bilney, Esq., Fir Grange, Wey- 

 brid°e, was exhibited at the Drill Hall, and gained a Gold Medal (see page 

 117). An interesting note on the collection, by Mr. J. Cornhill, appeared 

 a short time ago in The Garden (1904, i., p. 275), in which it is explained 

 how Mr. Bilney came to take up Orchid culture: " It may surprise many 

 when I say that the high development of these Dendrobes represents some 

 seven years' labour only in the field of Orchid culture. Less than a decade 

 ago neither Mr. Bilney nor his gardener (Mr. Whitlock) knew anything 

 about Orchids. It happened that someone offered him several Orchids, 

 which he accepted with the remark that he knew nothing about them, but 

 would try and grow them. Bit by bit master and man puzzled the thing 

 out, gradually new plants were purchased, and now there is probably no 

 better grown lot of Orchids in the country. This should be a lesson and 

 an encouragement to those who have had no early training in Orchid 



ERIA AMICA. 



This is a pretty little Eria which flowered in the collection of John Day, 

 Esq., of Tottenham, in January, i867, and was described and figured by 

 Reichenbach (Xcn. Orch., ii., p. 162, t. 168, fig. 3), but seems to have been 

 afterwards lost sight of. The figure, like most of those in the Xcnia, is very 

 rude, but Mr. Day made an excellent painting {Coll. Draw., xi., t. 63), 

 which shows it to be a plant well known in cultivation under the later name 

 of E. confusa, Hook. f. (Hook. Ic. PL, t. 1850). It had previously been 

 confused with E. excavata, Lindl. Mr. Day's plant came from Assam, 

 having been sent to him, as his notes explain, by his nephews, William John 

 and Charles Williamson. It has since been sent from the same country, 

 and from the Chin Hills, being also a native of Nepal and Sikkim. It 

 belongs to the section Hymeneria, and bears racemes of several flowers, 

 having the sepals and petals yellowish green, lined with five light reddish 

 brown nerves, and a yellow lip with a red brown band on the side lobes, 

 and a round blotch of the same colour at the base of the front lobe. 

 The discovery removes another species from the list of doubtfuls. 



R. A. R. 



