Plate 257. 
PHALiENOPSIS SCHILLEKIANA DELICATA. 
Among the numerous importations of Consul Schiller’s Phalcenopsis, introduced to our 
gardens during the past two or three years, a wonderful variety has been observable; indeed, 
scarcely two individual plants have proved exactly alike in foliage, habit of growth, and flower; 
a fact, moreover, which few will regret, seeing that we are every day longing for variety 
rather than sameness in floral loveliness of all kinds. Some forms of this noble species are 
remarkable for their floriferous character, and produce branched spikes four to six feet in 
height, each bearing from an hundred to two hundred flowers, but in nearly all these cases 
the flowers are small compared with some of the fewer flowered varieties. One of the most 
delicately beautiful of all the varieties of this species we have yet seen is that we now figure, 
it having been several times exhibited in bloom at South Kensington, by Mr. Ollerhead, who 
has charge of Sir Henry Peek’s collection of rare Orchids and other plants at Wimbledon 
House. As will be seen by our drawing, the individual flowers are not only of good size and 
form but of great substance, the petals not having that tendency to curl backwards, so often 
observable in thin petaled forms of this species. In colour this variety reminds one of 
P. leucorrhoda, the petaloid segments being most delicately suffused with soft flesh colour, 
the darkest part of the flower being the club-shaped column which is suffused with carmine. 
We hope Mr. Ollerhead may be successful in increasing this charming and desirable Orchid, 
seeing that it would be a welcome addition to the most select collection. 
Plate 258. 
NEW SEEDLING GLOXINIAS. 
Among easily grown, free blooming plants for warm greenhouses or conservatory 
decoration we have few so beautiful in colour and distinct in habit as the various forms of 
erect and pendant flowered Gloxinias, of which, those represented in our plate may serve as 
examples, although scarcely any pictorial illustration could do full justice to the rich velvety 
tints possessed by these lovely flowers. One great incentive to the general culture of these 
plants is due to their being easily originated by careful cross-breeding, or from self-fertilised 
seeds, and any really excellent forms so obtained are perpetuated in quantity by leaf cuttings, 
inserted in pans of sandy soil on a genial bottom heat of 70° to 80° in which they soon 
root and form growing tubers, which flower freely the year following. We recently saw a 
charming group of these plants flowering in Messrs. Yeitch’s nursery, at Chelsea, and were 
much impressed with the vigour of the plants and the quantity of large shapely massive 
flowers which they afforded thus early in the season. By sowing seeds or striking the leaves 
at different times, aided by carefully forcing in heat or judiciously retarding, as the case may 
be, these charming plants may be induced to flower in succession throughout the spring, 
summer, and autumn months, while after their growing season is past they can be dried off 
and stowed away on a dry shelf or under a dry stage, until the time arrives for potting the 
tubers and starting them again into growth and bloom. 
