ON SUSPENDING PLANTS IN GREENHOUSES AND STOVES. 
133 
handsome specimens at irregular intervals from each other, or heights or distances 
from the path, and by destroying the trim appearance of climbers trained to the 
roof in permitting their branches of different lengths to depend, and wave in the 
air ; something still seems to us requisite in order to give that finished aspect of 
variety, the love of which is so general and paramount an element in the human 
constitution. 
Every one must have admired, without any reflection on the appropriateness of 
such treatment to its objects, the liveliness, and elegance, and finish, imparted to a 
house containing Orchidaceas, by having a portion of them hung at difierent heights, 
and in various positions, from the rafters or other parts of the roof. But in such 
case, the natural circumstances of the plants may be supposed to have suggested 
their suspension, and not a mere regard to any notions of taste. However, when 
it is found that, beyond the contemplated purpose of the system, it has the further 
merit of substituting for dulness and blankness the most delightful variety ; we 
conceive that it would not merely be rational, but desirable, that the plan should, 
if possible, be applied in instances where the habits of the plants do not demand, 
yet can be readily adapted to, the like conditions ; at least when no genuine air- 
plants can be made to flourish in the atmospheric circumstances commonly main- 
tained in the house. 
The project, therefore, which will form the substance of our present remarks, 
is to introduce into ordinary stoves, and even greenhouses, suspended specimens of 
those Orchidacese which will endure the conditions generally affbrded therein ; and 
to make up for the scantiness of such kinds by similarly appropriating species 
usually cultivated in those structures, whose character is either trailing, or such as 
to admit of being made easily pendent. We are quite aware that we cannot claim 
much of novelty for a recommendation of this sort. From the earliest periods, we 
have seen plants hanging in even cottage-windows ; and the grace they have 
contributed to these lowly erections makes us additionally anxious to secure it 
more largely for ornamental structures, in which, we are constrained to think, 
those simple but most efi*ective auxiliaries are too much overlooked or despised. 
All will perceive and acknowledge, in the decoration of an apartment, or a building 
devoted to the common or occasional uses of life — and, we may add, in the adorn- 
ment of the person — that if some comparatively minute and insignificant article is 
wanting, the eff'ect of the whole is meagre or unpolished. And what would be 
universally noticed here, is fully as clear to the perceptions of the observant and 
tasteful in the absence of suspended plants from floricultural erections. There, too, 
so trifling a matter has an amazing influence in giving an air of incompleteness or 
perfection to the scene. 
It may seem ridiculous to such as think of epiphytal Orchidace^ solely as 
tropical plants, and are accustomed to deem great heat and moisture essential for 
them, to talk of growing any member of the tribe in a greenhouse. An investi- 
gation of the natural circumstances in which some of them flourish, will, however, 
