OPERATIONS FOR SEPTEMBER. 
191 
they have become quite ornamental. The Hp is variable in form, always indeed covered with long 
loose straggling hairs, but having its lateral lobes sometimes not more than half a line long, and 
occasionally as much as two lines." The sepals and petals appear to be orange-coloured on the 
inside, streaked and blotched with brown, and greenish without. The lip is whitish, marked with 
yellow and purple. It requires only a very moderate temperature. Bot. Reg. 43. 
Prt/mula denticula'ta. Northern India produces this pretty little species, which has been brought 
over and distributed by the Directors of the Honourable East India Company, through the medium 
of Dr. Royle. It has flowered in the Horticultural Gardens, Chiswick, and also with Mr. Veitch, 
of Exeter. Dr. Lindley states that, notwithstanding the usual dwarf condition of plants that were 
kept in a pot, the leaves of one " placed on some rockwork in a northern aspect are already a 
foot long, and it is therefore to be anticipated that a far more vigorous vegetation will be mani- 
fested by it. It is certainly quite hardy." Its flowering season is March and April, and it is said, 
to come into bloom, "in the ascent to Choor, (on the Himalayas,) in the earliest spring, when the 
snow has just begun to melt from the neighbourhood of stones and trees, or from situations 
exposed to the full influence of the solar rays." It demands " a rich loamy soil and a dry situ- 
ation," and is propagated by division or by seeds. Bot. Reg. 47, and Bot. Mag. 3959. 
Va'nda crista^ta. " An Epiphyte, with the habit of V. Roxburghii, found in 1818, on trees in 
Nepal, by Dr. Wallich, flowering in the month of April." The leaves are rather close, and pale 
green. The sepals and petals are greenish, and the lip is pouch-shaped at the base, expanding 
into a flatter and laminated surface, and terminated by two singular processes, resembling, in 
figure, the tail of a swallow, or of some kinds of fish. The labellum is very richly painted with 
brownish purple, and has a beautiful velvety surface. It was blossomed by Messrs. Rollisson, of 
Tooting, in March last, and has continued flowering almost ever since. The species must be 
grown on a log of wood, and suspended in a moist and warm part of the Orchidaceous stove. 
Bot. Reg. 48. 
OPERATIONS FOR SEPTEMBER. 
— <j> — 
The extraordinary droughts of the late summer have rendered it a particularly suitable one 
for the preservation of seeds, as they will have been thoroughly ripened in the open air. The 
present is the proper season for collecting those which have not previously matured themselves. 
It is a common practice to pull up an entire plant if it be an annual, or to cut off" the whole of its 
spikes and clusters when it is a perennial, and then to suspend them in sheds for completing the ripen- 
ing process. In their removal from the ground, their conveyance to the place of deposit, and their 
suspension where they will be exposed to casual shaking and to the action of the wind, it generally 
happens that all the ripe and fully-developed seed of the small-seeded plants is lost, and only the 
immature, shrivelled, and imperfect portions saved. This ought not to be. 
To remove the above evil, each capsule, or head, or pod of seeds, ought to be individually 
plucked, just as it is manured ; and they will then need little or no drying, but may at once be 
stored away in drawers for the winter. These hints apply to all descriptions of plants, and as weU 
to those in the greenhouse as to such as are in the open ground. There is an especial necessity for 
attending more to the seeds of Composite flowers ; for it is notorious that the annual kinds, with 
very few exceptions, can rarely be perpetuated to any extent while the seeds are so carelessly 
collected ; the majority of those sold by seedsmen being abortive. The fact is, that growers do 
not suffer them to remain long enough on the plants, or eradicate the plants themselves too soon; 
and the consequence is, that none but the outer rows of seeds are ever perfected, the rest 
withering away to nothing. 
From the recent and protracted dry weather, many shrubs and young trees will have been 
induced to shed their leaves earlier than usual, and such may forthwith be transplanted should 
their I'emoval be contemplated. The time for transplantation is just after the fall of the leaf, as 
plants which are shifted at that period have an opportunity of getting established before the frost 
comes to hurt them. 
