98 



THE ORCHID WORLD. 



An Amateur's Success. 

 — The adjoining iDhotograph 

 is of a group of Orchids ex- 

 hibited by Arthur Easton, 

 Esq., Shirley, Faversham, 

 Kent, at the local Flower 

 Show in November last. The 

 plants were staged by Mr. 

 Warner, who used a high 

 frame which slanted against 

 the wall, and from a mass of 

 maidenhair fern the Orchids 

 showed to great advantage. 

 Mr. Easton, in winning the 

 First Prize, is to be congratu- 

 lated on his success, for 

 although he only employs a 

 gardener one day a week, his 

 plants give excellent results. 

 This interesting exhibit dis- 

 prove's the theory tiliat 

 Orchids can only be success- 

 fully grown where a large staff 

 of gardeners is kept. The 

 varieties include Odontoglos- 

 sum crispum, O. Rossii, Den- 

 drobium Phalasnopsis, Catt- 

 leya labiata, Oncidium varico- 

 sum, O. Kramerianum, and 

 Cypripedium hybrids. 



An Amateur's 1st Prize Group of Orchids. 



ANGR^CUM SUBERBUM. — Of this elegant 

 species William Ellis in his Visi/s to Mada- 

 gascar says : " The roots of this Orchid formed 

 a sort of network at the base of the bulb. 

 During the journey T occasionally noticed it 

 growing not only on the branches of living 

 tiree^, but very often high up on the bare 

 barked trunks of the dead trees. Sometimes 

 in the angle formed by the junction of an arm 

 with the trunk of a large native tree, 

 apparently without a fragment of bark 

 adhering to the trunk, a bunch of moss, or a 

 cluster of Orchids, or both mingled together, 

 would be growing apparently with great 

 vigour, and often in full flower. More than 

 one tall bare trunk, twelve or eighteen inches 

 in diameter, and thirty feet high, stood sur- 



mounted, or surrounded near its summit, by a 

 cluster of Angrascums, with their long, sword- 

 shaped, fleshy leaves, or what was more 

 beautiful' still, a fine specimen of some species 

 of bird's-nest fern. The contrast lietween the 

 white, shining, barkless trunk, and these 

 verdant clusters of plants on the top, was 

 sometimes very striking ; especially as the 

 Orchids were often in flower, and by their 

 growth altogether suggested the idea that by 

 the decay of their own roots a receptacle was 

 formed for the moisture or the rain by which 

 the plant was nourished. This combination of 

 life and death, growth and decay, presented 

 one of the most singular amongst the man}-, 

 to me, new and curious aspects of nature which 

 my journey afforded." 



