74 
CGELOGYNE GARDNERIANA. 
by being subjected to an adequate degree of heat, is any injury from the large 
quantity of water received by it in its natural circumstances averted. 
When the flowers have faded, and the leaves are beginning to wither, repose 
ensues in the usual order of vegetable existence, and this must not be disturbed by 
either atmospheric or more palpable applications of water. Heat, however, will 
not injure the pseudo -bulbs, provided it be not too intense ; in which case, it 
might greatly debilitate or wholly destroy them. It commences its periodical 
development about the month of December, by evolving new shoots, from the 
summits of which the large pendulous racemes of flowers are produced. These 
appear while the leaves are exceedingly small, and it is not till the blossoms have 
fallen that the foliage is fully elaborated, or the pseudo-bulbs perfected. 
The specimen here figured flowered at Chatsworth in the month of December, 
1838. In India, it blossoms under the influence of almost incessant rains, and the 
appearance of its flowers, hanging as they do from the branches of trees, is said to. 
resemble floating garlands of snow, interwreathed with the golden colour of the 
bracts, and the vivid green of the pseudo-bulbs and leaves. 
For an account of the origin of the generic name, see No. Ixii. p. 25. 
