262 
ON THE CULTURE OF NEW AND RARE PLANTS. 
where Camellias and other similar plants are sometimes kept in a house with a 
northern aspect, the latter objection would certainly not apply ; but such is very 
rarely the case, and even where it is, both heat and moisture will be still wanting, 
without which, we are persuaded, these charming species would never flourish. 
Discarding at once, then, the notion that a greenhouse is the most favourable, 
or indeed is at all a suitable, situation for the plants whose treatment is now 
under consideration, and asserting that the only reason for the failures which have 
been experienced in their cultivation when kept in a stove, is their having been too 
freely exposed to the solar influences without any modification of them by artificial 
shading, we will venture to affirm, that if either or both of these species are kept 
in a moist stove or orchidaceous house, where shading will always be of great 
advantage to the other plants with which they are assembled, and where in con- 
sequence it is usually employed, they will attain to a degree of perfection which 
has hitherto only been witnessed in the collections of those who have practised 
the system of treatment thus generally propounded. 
To an orchidaceous house, indeed, these two species appear to us to be almost 
indispensable requisites ; for, besides the peculiar adaptation of the treatment to 
which that tribe of plants is usually subjected to those here noticed, there is a 
degree of beauty and elegance in these two species of Passijiora which contributes 
most astonishingly to the gaiety and interest of such a structure, as the great 
profusion and almost constant succession of their splendid flowers, will always 
compensate for any deficiency in the display of the flowers of the Orchidacese, 
and even when they are in their greatest perfection will add a charm to the 
appearance of the whole, of which none but those who have witnessed its effect 
can have any adequate conception. 
They should jiot be trained to the rafters or roof of the house, but a number 
of strong wires or chains may be extended longitudinally from one end of the 
house to the other, supported by the rafters, and allowed to hang loosely, so as to 
form a kind of semicircular festoons. To these chains the plants in question may 
be attached, and they will also answer the purpose of supports, on which can be 
suspended any of the more epiphytal kinds of Orchidacese. This practice has 
been adopted with excellent effect by the Messrs. Loddiges ; and other cultivators 
of Orchidaceas would greatly add to the appearance of their collection by following 
the example of those gentlemen. 
It may be well to mention, that the moisture recommended in a preceding part 
of this article applies more to that supplied in the form of vapour, than to that 
which is furnished to the roots, as the latter require only an ordinary degree of it. 
