OPERATIONS FOR FEBRUARY. 
23 
Stanh5pea — ? Perhaps the handsomest species of this splendid genus, and 
one which seems to be quite new, is at present blossoming with Messrs. Loddiges. 
The pseudo-bulbs are not peculiar, but the leaves are very broad and of a strikingly 
deep green. A long pendulous raceme, bearing seven or eight noble flowers, is now 
protruded, and the individual blossoms are exceedingly interesting. The ground 
colour of the sepals is a light, though decided, orange, with numerous spots of pale 
purple, afer the manner of S. oculata^ but smaller. The petals are narrow, 
inclining upwards, beautifully undulated at the margins, and folded back at the 
point, of a deeper orange than the sepals, and having fewer as well as darker and 
more uniform spots. The lip is dark orange, with a blotch of purple on each side, 
and pale yellowish-orange appendages, which are polished on the upper surface, and 
sparingly spotted. The species is remarkable for the vivid-orange colour of its 
flowers, which gives it a most fascinating appearance ; and its attraction is increased 
by the powerful and rich odour they exhale. 
OPERATIONS FOR FEBRUARY. 
After the extremely rigorous weather latterly experienced shall have departed, 
it will be necessary for the gardener to adopt many measures in plant-houses for 
weakening its elFects, and also speedily to perform several operations in the garden 
which have been unavoidably deferred. While it continues, however, the houses 
and frames should be kept covered with mats, and the plants in them preserved at 
a degree of dryness verging on absolute want. 
It is very rarely that a plant is lost in winter by being allowed an insufficient 
quantity of water, but the numbers that are destroyed from a contrary cause, are 
incalculable. Every plant has a greater or less supply of young and tender rootlets, 
on which its health and sometimes its vitality are wholly dependent. When the 
soil in which these are growing is suffered to become very moist, as it is in several 
of the places we have recently seen, a slight frost that enters the greenhouse will 
inevitably congeal the water in the earth, and cause all those valuable roots to 
perish. The admission of frost to such structures being by no means of rare 
occurrence in changeable seasons, the injury we have mentioned must be equally 
frequent when much moisture is present in the soil. If, on the other hand, a long 
previous period of comparative drought has been maintained, and both the soil and 
the plants are actually as dry as they can consistently be kept, no damage of the 
kind will accrue, for they will then endure a few degrees of frost with impunity. 
With regard to the external protection of plant-structures and frames that are 
capable of being artificially heated, the practice seems to have been exceedingly 
common in the earlier periods of gardening, and is now pursued by most nursery= 
men, though it is seldom employed in private establishments. Wooden shutters, 
indeed, were formerly used for greenhouses, and might yet be made highly useful 
in covering those pits or houses which contain nothing but hard- wooded plants, 
