ORCHID CULTURE PAST AND PRESENT. 



119 



To these hot steamy places Orchids were consigned as soon as 

 received, and into which, it was occasionally remarked, it was as 

 dangerous to health and comfort to enter as it was into the 

 damp close jungle in which all tropical Orchids were then sup- 

 posed to have their home. 



The want of success that attended the preservation of the 

 plants in such places for any length of time was supposed to be 

 due to some peculiar difficulty in their cultivation, and it was 

 resolved that an attempt should be made in the garden of the 

 Horticultural Society to overcome it. A stove was accordingly 

 set apart for their exclusive culture, and when subsequently 

 Mr. (afterwards Dr.) John Lindley was appointed assistant 

 secretary to the Society, the chief direction of it fell into his 

 hands. " The first experiments were unsuccessful ; the plants 

 were lost as quickly as they were received." This led Lindley 

 to inquire more closely into the conditions under which Orchids 

 grow in their native countries, and which, if accurately ascer- 

 tained, would, he believed, supply data for a more successful 

 cultivation of them. The results of his inquiry, and the infer- 

 ences he drew from them, are contained in a paper which he read 

 before the Society in May 1830. It is evident from this paper 

 that the information he obtained was far too restricted, and held 

 good only for a limited area ; hence from such imperfect 

 premises the conclusions could scarcely be otherwise than 

 fallacious. 



For example, Mr. William Harrison, a merchant residing at 

 Eio de Janeiro, and who for some years previously had sent many 

 fine Orchids to his brothers at Liverpool, informed him that in 

 Brazil " they exclusively occupy damp woods and rich valleys 

 among vegetation of a most luxuriant description by which they 

 are embowered." The word exclusively was unfortunate, for we 

 now know that most of the finest of the Brazilian Cattleyas and 

 Laelias occur at considerable elevations, and often in exposed 

 situations. And Dr. Wallich, to whom we owe the first intro- 

 duction of many fine Dendrobes, told him that " In Nepaul, the 

 thicker the forest, the more shady the trees, the richer and 

 blacker the natural soil, the more profuse are the Orchids." 

 From such data Lindley concluded that high temperature, deep 

 shade, and excessive humidity are the conditions essential to the 

 well-being of the plants, and he framed his cultural recommen- 



