THE ORCHID WORLD. 



5 



grow here, though they are found at several 

 places in the neighbourhood. 



A truly remarkable species is Limodorum 

 abortivum, for its stems, which are quite 

 leafless, are frequently four feet high and 

 grow in clumps of perhaps a dozen in the 

 clearings among the Stone Pines. The 

 whole of the plant, stem, flowers, and bracts 

 are of a metallic shade of purple, the flowers 

 having glints of gold upon the lip. There are 

 also crowds of Serapias lingua, locall)- called 

 the Hen's Mouth, hanging down their tongues, 

 of all shades of scarlet. 



I was extremely fortunate in finding there 

 the very rare hybrid Orchi-Serapias compli- 

 cata, a cross between O. laxiflora and S. 

 lingua. The discovery caused great interest 

 at Kew, which has now my dried specimen. 

 It is a beautiful little thing, with large, 

 marooned coloured flowers having a trilobed 

 lip quite out of all proportion to the rest of 

 the plant. Another rarity is Habenaria 

 intacta, with pink striped flowers and spotted 

 leaves ; it is admitted into our flora as it 

 grows in north-west Ireland. 



The Butterflies (Habenaria bifolia) show 

 their long tailed white wings, the sub-variety 



THE ATMOSPHERE OF 



IN the early days of Orchid growing nearly 

 all rare and expensive plants were given 

 an abundance of heat ; in fact, the pur- 

 chase-pnice of the plant seemed almost a guide 

 to the degrees of heat thought necessary for 

 its successful cultivation. We read of expen- 

 sive Orchids being plunged' into the' tan bed of 

 the hot-house, and the weaker they became 

 so much the more care was taken of them. 

 Happily such notions have passed away, and 

 we now not only attempt, but in the majority 

 of cases succeed, in obtaining even better cul- 

 tural results than the plants achieve in their 

 native country. 



All this has come about by the rational 

 treatment accorded to their cultivation. In- 

 stead of looking upon Orchids as some 

 strange, little understood wonder, we now 

 treat them, from a cultural point, merely as a 



laxiflora flowering with them, whilst flocks of 

 swallow-tailed real butterflies dance above. 

 The beautiful Cephalanthera ensifolia, with 

 sword-like leaves, is another white kind ; C. 

 paUens grows with it, but it is not so 

 ornamental. An Epipactis, a near relation, 

 IS putting forth its leaves, but its time of 

 blossoming is not yet. The rosy -pink 

 pyramid of Anacamptis pyrimidalis has just 

 opened its flowers. 



Perhaps the most interesting of all these 

 Italian Orchids I have left until the last, the 

 great Lizard (Orchis hircina). All the winter 

 the broad, dark green leaves have stood out 

 from all the rest of the foliage surrounding it, 

 then gradually, little by little, the stems have 

 lengthened out until, at last, at the very end 

 of May the long greenish purple lizards have 

 burst forth and are squirming in thousands, 

 as many as twenty on each plant. Here I 

 have only dealt with the Orchids, yet, all the 

 way home through the Olives, less like the 

 ghosts of trees than usual, for they are in 

 flower, countless other beautiful flowers grow. 

 True the Tulips and Anemones are over, yet 

 what a glorious contrast is a field of pale 

 mauve Iris with scarlet Poppies intermingled. 



THE ORCHID HOUSE. 



very interesting and rare portion of the 

 earth's vegetation, and to obtain success 

 when grown in the somewhat artificial atmo- 

 sphere of our greenhouses it is only necessary, 

 therefore, to give them, as near as possible, 

 the same climatic conditions which they or, 

 in the case of hybrids, their parents have 

 enjoyed in the past. 



This treatment can only be allowed them 

 when their natural climate has been studied. 

 Not only should the temperature and the rain- 

 fall be noted, but the situation in which the 

 plants are found should be considered. Some 

 kinds are only discovered in low moisture- 

 laden valleys, some on the highest branches 

 of the trees' where they are exposed to the 

 full amount of air and sunshine, others in 

 shady nooks and the lower branches of trees, 

 and some on the almost bare rocks which 



VOL. II. 



2 



