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IV. Upon the Cultivation of Epiphytes of the Orchis Tribe. By 

 John Lindley, Esq. F. R. S. $c. Assistant Secretary. 



Read May 18, 1830. 



I t is well known that one of the subjects of experiment in the 

 Garden of the Horticultural Society has been, during several years, 

 the cultivation of those remarkable plants belonging to the Orchis 

 tribe, which in their native situations, within the tropics, are found 

 growing upon trees or rocks. Since there exists some difference of 

 opinion as to whether such an enquiry is a legitimate object of 

 Horticultural investigation, and since considerable interest is taken 

 in the question by many Fellows of the Society, I beg leave to offer 

 the following remarks upon the original cause of this enquiry having 

 been instituted, and the practical conclusions that appear to be 

 deducible, either from the facts that are known relative to the 

 natural habits of these plants, or from the experience that we have 

 acquired. 



Botanists were aware, at a very early period of the history of 

 science, of the existence in tropical countries of a race of plants found 

 growing upon the trunks of trees, very different from any thing wild 

 in Europe ; and not less remarkable for their beauty or fragrance, than 

 for the extremely singular structure of their flowers. The figure of 

 Coatzonte Coxoahitl by Hernandez, a nearly related species of 

 which has been since described by Humboldt, under the name of 

 Anguloa superba, the plates of Plumier, of Rumphius, and 

 Rheede, the drawings of the Chinese, and the reports of travellers, 

 had all contributed to excite a lively desire in the minds of the 

 collectors of rare or curious plants to add these wonders of the 



