Jaiuiary, kj'S-] 



'IHI' ORCHID WOKIJ). 



In a wild state the Acrides affix themselves 

 to the trunks and l)ranches of living trees, 

 rarely to dead and prostrate ones. The 

 young plants are usually erect or ascending, 

 and emit from their base numerous cord-like 

 roots that creep o\er the bark or along the 

 cracks and crevices of it, clinging to the tree 

 with extraordinary tenacity, and holding the 

 plants so firmly as to enable them to resist 

 any of the ordinary forces of Nature that 

 would affect their stability or cause their 

 displacement. As the stems continue to 

 lengthen, adventitious roots are constantly 

 produced from the i^receding year's growth, 

 which attain a great length, frequently 

 branch, and become pendent by their own 

 weight. These roots thence form in time a 

 tangled, cord-like mass that cannot be aptly 

 compared with any phase of vegetation seen 

 ni our climate. The annual lengthening of 

 the stem is well marked by the foliage, which 

 in a wild state is of biennial duration ; the 

 roots too that are farthest removed from the 

 foliage gradually cease to perform their 

 functions and die off. The inflorescence is 

 produced from the axils of the leaves of the 

 preceding year, which begin to wither in the 

 short, dry season that ensues after the growth 

 of the current year is completed. As the 

 stem of an Aendes lengthens by successive 

 yearly growths it gradually deviates from its 

 ascending position, first becoming more 

 inclined, then taking a horizontal direction, 

 and finally by its own weight and the weight 

 of its appendages it is brought into almost an 

 inverted or, if near enough to the ground, a 

 prostrate position, when its further lengthen- 

 ing IS checked or even arrested by the 

 obstacles it encounters. Nevertheless, the 

 stems of Aerides are virtually mterminate, 

 they would continue to lengthen indefinitely 

 if no physical obstacles or checks intervened. 

 Stems have been observed from i ^-20 feet 

 long, but long before that length has been 

 attained young shoots spring from the base 

 of the parent stem, which in time become 

 independent plants ; the stem also produces 

 lateral shoots when a fracture has occurred, 

 or when growth at the apex has been arrested 

 by some physical cause. As the leaves wither 



the stem becomes lignificd, sapless, and 

 gradually loses all signs of life bey(jnd a 

 certain distance below the foliage ; probably 

 the life of no part of the stem under the 

 most fav()ural)le circumstances exceeds five 

 )cars. 



.Such IS the general \iew of the most 

 obvious period of the life history of an 

 Aerides in its native home. Many exceptional 

 cases are doubtless to be met with, but in 

 none that have come to our knowledge has 

 the general law been greatly departed from. 

 Under the artificial conditions to which the 

 Aerides are subjected in the glass houses of 

 Europe, some modifications of the general 

 law of their growth as sketched above are 

 occasionally observable, especially in the 

 longer persistence of the foliage and 

 prolonged life of the stem. 



The species of Aerides admit of a division 

 into two very distinct sections according to 

 their vegetation and habit, viz., Planifoliae, 

 in which the leaves are fiat, leathery, and 

 spreading, and Teretifolias, in which the leaves 

 are cylindnc, fleshy, and grooved in front. 

 Of the last-named section two species only, 

 Aerides mitratum and A. Vandarum, are 

 known to us to be in cultivation. All the 

 other cultivated forms belong to the fiat- 

 leaved section, throughout which a general 

 uniformity of habit prevails, so that the 

 following short diagnosis of the vegetative 

 organs will serve for all : — 



The stems are cylindric, deviating but little 

 m thickness from that of a man's little finger, 

 ligneous below, leafy upwards, emitting long, 

 cord-like, often branched, aerial roots. 



The leaves are strap-shaped, keeled 

 beneath, embracing the stem at their base, 

 obtuse or obliquely two-lobed at their apex, 

 very leathery in texture. 



The inflorescence is lateral, either simple 

 or branched, decurved and usually longer than 

 the leaves ; very viscid in the odoratum group 

 from a honeyed secretion along the rachis 

 and from the base and foot of the column. 



The flowers are often crowded and inverted, 

 that is, the labellum is uppermost, but owing 

 to the pendulous habit of the inflorescence the 

 flowers appear to the spectator in their 



