112 
ON THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE ON PLANTS. 
highly interesting natural order, orchidacese. We have, however, in a former 
number, entered at length into the subject of uniform and indiscriminate treatment, 
so far as relates to orchidaceous plants, and our present observations will refer to 
stove plants generally. 
The first question which presents itself to our consideration, and to which we 
propose to restrict our remarks in the present article, is the extent to which stove 
plants are influenced by the immediate or mitigated agency of light upon them, 
and how the gardener may avail himself of what is already known relative to this 
subject, to cultivate any of these plants with increased facility and success. Few 
persons, we presume, are ignorant of the fact, that light is essential to the health 
and vigour, nay, to the maintenance of the vital principle itself in most plants ; but 
whilst, with few exceptions, vegetable life would become extinct after a certain 
period of total seclusion from light, it is very certain that some plants require a 
much greater degree of the potent though subtile element than others ; for, though 
many species seem to derive their very existence from the direct and vivid rays of 
the sun; there are numerous others which are incapable of enduring its more 
immediate influences. For instance, many of the plants now under consideration, 
when exposed to the full and unmitigated blaze of a meridian sun, lose all that 
healthy luxuriance for which they are remarkable ; their foliage becomes brown and 
unhealthy, and even their growth is much impeded, or in some cases, wholly sus- 
pended. On the contrary, the efi*ects of an insufficient quantity of light on those 
plants which require it in a greater degree, are manifested by their stems becoming 
elongated or drawn, and consequently weak or slender, and by the leaves assuming 
a white or blanched and sickly appearance ; and if it is long withheld, either from 
natural or other causes, the plants will sooner or later absolutely perish. It 
becomes, therefore, highly important, that, where plants from tropical or other 
countries are intended or desired to be cultivated in perfection, the true nature, 
character, or habits of those plants, with every minute particular relative to their 
original habitats, should be fully ascertained ; indeed, without this knowledge, 
though perchance a general system of treatment may happen to succeed satisfac- 
torily with some few of the many plants subjected to it, it may be regarded rather 
as a mere casualty, than as evincing any correct knowledge of the habits of the 
plants, or furnishing any justification of the absurd and injurious system of indis- 
criminate treatment ; and we maintain that specific and rational rules, founded 
upon natural habits, actual experience, or botanical affinity, should invariably guide 
the gardener or cultivator in his treatment of plants. Still adhering, however, to 
the subject of light, we proceed to give a general and brief outline of the nature of 
such plants as will not only endure, but absolutely require, a great degree of solar 
light ; and also of those which succeed best where some intervening object deprives 
them of the more immediate rays of the sun. All such plants as are of a succulent 
or juicy substance, — those in which viscid or resinous matter abounds, — and those 
which produce a great abundance of leaves, and consequently expose a large extent 
