EASILY CULTll'ATED ORCHIDS. 



157 



but the most diligent. W. W. Bailey, in his poem, 

 "Calypso,"* most happily calls the little flower the 

 goddess' shoe, lost beneath a pine tree. He says : 



" No workmanship of mortal can compare 

 With what's exliibked in beauty there, 

 And looking at the treasure 'neath the tree, 

 The goddess' sell I almost hope to see ! 



"The tints of purple, and the texture fine, 

 The curves of beauty shown in every line, 

 The fringes exquisite of golden hue. 

 Perfect the wonders of the fairy shoe." 



And now we come to our last New England genus, 

 the coral-root, or corallorhiza, uncanny plants, with- 

 out any green foliage, but parasitic, probably, on roots. 

 A single scape with a raceme of brownish or purplish 

 flowers is all you see. Dig up the plant and wash care- 

 fully the brittle root stocks, and the meaning of the 

 name is then revealed. They consist of a cluster of 

 many white branches, closely imitating a piece of coral. 

 The commonest of our thirty species is C. iinillijloyn , 

 found in rich woods throughout. It averages about a 

 foot in height and the color of the entire plant is pur- 



*See February issue, p. 124. 



plish. It seems to fruit freely and flowers all through 

 the season, for I have found it late in September in 

 flower when most of the plants were in fine fruit. C. 

 iiiiia/a is a more delicate plant, not so common, growing 

 in swampy places. C. odojitorliiza is a delicate and rare 

 species with us. 



In this rather cursory talk I have mentioned every 

 species of orchid known to occur within the limits of 

 New England, and I have at least shown that they are 

 not few. They have all been more minutely described 

 by Baldwin, in his charming book on New England or- 

 chids, and from which our figures 1-3, and 5, have been 

 taken. I presume that it is not easy to imitate the damp, 

 shady habitat of most of our brilliant species, or we 

 should see them more frequently in cultivation. The 

 common purple lady's slipper is often transplanted and 

 succeeds well. But is it not better to plunge into the 

 deep woods and shady bogs and hunt for them yourself ? 

 The tramp, the climb, the wet feet, and, perhaps the 

 barked limbs, give a zest to the pursuit and add tenfold 

 to the keen enjoyment which attends the successful 

 search. W.vlter De.^ne. 



Massachusclls. 



EASILY CULTIVATED ORCHIDS— I. 



THEIR GHNER.VL REOU IKEMEN'TS THE C VPRI PEDI U MS. 



HE SUCCESSFUL cultivation 

 of orchids under glass has 

 from its commencement been 

 regarded as the representa- 

 tion of the gardener's high- 

 est skill. Although the mys- 

 tery with which their treat- 

 ment was at one time sur- 

 rounded has now, in a great measure, disappeared, 

 a sufficient number of species yet remain uncon- 

 quered by the cultivator's art to justify something 

 of the old reverence in -which they were held. Im- 

 mense strides, however, have been made since the 

 middle of the present century, -when the cultivation 

 of these plants was first seriously undertaken. At 

 that time, indeed, the enormous quantities that were 

 brought to England to open their flowers, perhaps 

 only once — or even not at all — and then die, served 

 not only to excite wonder and admiration for their 

 beauty, but also a feeling of despair at ever being 

 able to keep them as permanent ornaments to Eng- 

 lish gardens. The great errors and difficulties of 

 the first orchid-growers arose from an insufficient 

 knowledge, and often an entire ignorance, of the 

 natural conditions under which they grew. One 

 great indispensable condition was supposed to be 

 necessary to their existence. They were known to 

 come from tropical countries and to grow on trees, 



and without regard to the elevations at which they 

 were found, an atmosphere heated up to suffoca- 

 tion point and steaming with moisture was deemed 

 essential for every orchid. Many English garden- 

 ers, and not old ones either, can remember the 

 time when odontoglossums (which, in some locali- 

 ties, are now placed out of doors in summer) could 

 not be removed from one house to another without 

 being carefully covered. With the species that 

 came from high altitudes like the cool upper slopes 

 of the Andes, such treatment meant speedy death, 

 and even with the purely tropical kinds, the all im- 

 portant factor of a free and continuous supply of 

 fresh air being ignored, it was only the naturally 

 robust species that long survived. England was, 

 in short, as Sir Joseph Hooker graphically put it, 

 " the grave of tropical orchids." 



After a long and dearly-bought experience and the 

 acquisition of a fuller knowledge of their habitats, the 

 majority of orchids are now grown with as much confi- 

 dence and success as any other class of plants. Although 

 it is found that owing to the peculiar conditions under 

 which they grow, and to their greater dependence on 

 the atmosphere for food, a more constant and minute 

 attention to their needs is required, their cultivation is 

 seen to be governed by the same underlying principles 

 that regulate the treatment of the commoner types of in- 

 door plants. No one who has acquired a fair measure 

 of success with the latter need have the least hesitation 



