544 



GLADIOLUS DEVELOPMENT. 



basket in good peat fibre and a liberal supply of charcoal 

 and sphagnum moss. Its resting period is during the 

 months of October to March, during which time water 

 should be entirely withheld. 



Oiioutoglossiim excclleus. All the odontoglossums are 

 well worthy of cultivation from the fact that they are 

 easily grown in a cool house and produce some of the 

 most lovely flowers. O. excellens is a natural hybrid be- 

 tween two of our best species ; viz. : O. triiiinphans and 

 O. Pescalorei, and shows the characters of both species in 

 a very marked degree. This being a natural hybrid it is 

 consequently very rare. It is said that there are only 

 three plants of it in existence, Baron Schroder possessing 

 perhaps the very finest. His plant was exhibited at the 

 Royal Horticultural Society's show, at the Temple, last 

 year. The pseudo-bulbs and leaves resemble those of 

 O. triiunpliatts. The flowers are very handsome, sepals 

 and petals being of a rich straw color and densely marked 

 with crimson blotches. The sepals are three-quarters of 

 an inch broad, while the petals are more than an inch. 

 The sepals and petals carry the appearance of O. /rimti- 

 phaiis. while the lip is purely that of O. Fescatorfi in dif- 

 ferent colors. When one of these plants is met with, and 

 its form is good, one can rely on making a great deal of 

 money from it, 50 and 100 guineas being the price for a 

 plant. O. excellois will grow- perfectly well when put 



under the same treatment as its congeners. In fact, the 

 cooler the house in which it is grown can be kept, the 

 better, as this gives the flowers more substance and better 

 color ; they will remain expanded one to three months. 



Epidendrntn inacrocliihiiii , var. rosciim. Many of the 

 epidendrums have homely flowers, but the subject of this 

 note is a prominent exception and ranks amongst the very 

 finest orchids now known. It is a plant very easy to cul- 

 tivate and flowers freely. The flowers are produced on 

 a spike which arises from between the two leaves out of 

 the top of the bulb. Each spike bears eight or ten large 

 handsome flowers. The sepals and petals are about two 

 inches long and very wavy. In color they are of a rich 

 crimson purple. The lip is three lobed, the two lateral 

 lobes being small and curled up so as to entirely cover 

 the column. The main or lower lobe is very handsome, 

 being large and wavy, pretty rose in color, with three 

 dark stripes on the front portion of the lip. This plant 

 should be grown in a warm house, kept at a temperature 

 of about 65°. The plants grow best when put in baskets 

 and potted with a good compost of peat, with a few bits 

 of charcoal added to keep the compost open. The plants 

 will take a liberal supply of water all the year round, as 

 they do not lose their foliage annually ; a slight reduction 

 should be made during the flowering period. 



Kczv, England. W. J. Bean. 



GLADIOLUS DEVELOPMENT 



THE object is flowers, then in 

 cultivating gladioli we are sure of 

 obtaining the largest amount of 

 blooms for the longest period of 

 time and the least work. If the 

 object is variety of color and 

 splendor of display, no other flowers can surpass 

 these. Their only deficiency now is want of fra- 

 grance, but fragrance is coming ; the skill of the 

 hybridizer has already succeeded in introducing it 

 into some of :he more tender and delicate hybrids. 

 All that is now necessary is to go a little further, 

 and make the fragrance common to the genus, and 

 then what ? Why, we shall have the most splendid 

 and popular cut-flowers in the world ; flowers that 

 may be kept two weeks in the house, and which in- 

 stead of fading, grow more beautiful each day, 

 I marvel at their slow introduction, for their culti- 

 vation is so simple ; even tfie school children to 

 whom I have often given bulbs succeed, and grow 

 flowers as fine as any I can myself produce. 



I sat down to write out a few notes, mentally jotted 

 from time to time, as to peculiarities and tendencies 

 under cultivation, in the hands of hybridizers in search 

 of improvements. I have, according to the catalogues, 

 about a dozen different species. One of these was ob- 

 tained through reversion, but natural, common and im- 



mediate variations having been discarded, I find really, 

 no more than four well defined species. Hybrids I fear 

 have been classed as new species for speculative pur- 

 poses. There seems a strong tendency towards con- 

 stant deterioration, unless the conditions are made pro- 

 pitious, and then new seedlings frequently occur. Of 

 course, crossing and hybridizing them seems necessary 

 to keep up the pristine vigor, and yet Brenchleyensis 

 and some other old varieties have, year by year, grown 

 more vigorous than when I obtained them. Brenchley- 

 ensis seems to be a variety of a natural and well fixed 

 species. 



Gladioli present constant tendencies towards varia- 

 tions ; in one seedling the cross petals coalesce and form 

 and form a tube ; the plants under natural conditions 

 seem semi-aquatic ; they pine and wither in the absence 

 of rain. During two seasons when copious rains have 

 fallen while the flower spikes were half grown and bear- 

 ing the normal two rows of flower buds the stimulus of 

 rain water has caused the spikes to double into four 

 rows in their upper half, and in several instances the 

 flowers have double petals, and sometimes I have ob- 

 served the ordinary number of stamens doubled. There 

 is also a tendency towards longer and wider petals or 

 larger flowers, and also toward more intense variation 

 in color. 



For house and table decoration these cut-flowers have 

 no equal in stateliness, endurance and beauty, and the 

 bulbs are so cheap that these flowers may adorn the cot- 



