282 



POPULAR, GARDEN BOTANY. 



gloomy shades gay with its airy and brilliant flowers. Pre- 

 sently there are more of them, and then others appear, with 

 white and spotted and purple blossoms, some growing on 

 rotten logs floating in the water, but most on moss and de- 

 caying bark just above it. There is one magnificent species, 

 four inches across, called by the natives St. Ann's Flower, 

 of a brilliant purple colour, and emitting a most delightful 

 odour ; it is a new species, and the most magnificent flower 

 of its kind in these regions ; even the natives will some- 

 times deign to admire it, and to wonder how such a beauti- 

 ful flower grows f atoa' (uselessly) in the Gapo." 



The profusion also in which these plants grow in some 

 localities is surprising ; Dr. Hooker, when travelling in the 

 Himalayas, met with the Vanda ccerulea in oak-woods, 

 where it waved its panicles of azure flowers in the wind. 

 He collected seven men's loads in one place, and remarks : 

 — " On the following day we turned out our Vanda to clress 

 the specimens for travelling, and preserve the flowers for 

 botanical purposes. Of the latter we had three hundred 

 and sixty panicles, each composed of from six to twenty-one 

 broad, pale blue, tessellated flowers, three and a half to four 

 inches across, and they formed three piles on the floor of 

 the verandah, each a yard high. What would we not have 



