I 
14 ON PRUNING AND TRAINING PLANTS TO FORM STANDARDS. 
additions. Indeed, a little ingenuity expended on a tolerable collection of these 
plants, might furnish an almost endless fund of amusement ; for there are few of' 
them which do not impress the beholders with an idea that he has previously seen 
similarly-formed objects, though it is often impossible to remember what those 
objects are. Apt as illiterate and uncivilized people are in tracing resemblances, 
and characteristic as are some of the names given to Orchidacese by the natives oi 
countries in which they naturally grow, there are many species in which our acute 
naturalists have discovered the manifest types or copies of other things, which had 
escaped the observation of the tribes among which they flourish. 
One of the earliest introduced and commonest examples of the class of Orchi- 
daceous curiosities was the Butterfly-plant ( Oncidium papilio). This is now 
almost thrown into the shade by the lovelier Indian Butterfly-plant ( Phalcenopsu 
amabilis ) The dove-like figure of the column in the flowers of Peristeria , and 
the fine arched column of Cycnoches , which well represents the beauty of a swans 
neck, are two of the most pleasing examples. 
It is not, however, in the ordinary forms of any organ in these plants, that 
they are alone to be regarded as curious. Species the most apparently distinct in 
character, with flowers of widely different shapes, are sometimes amalgamated 
on one plant. Sometimes the pseudo-bulbs, instead of being produced at the base 
of each other, grow on the top, and the flower-stems play similar freaks. Occa- 
sionally, likewise, young plants issue from the seemingly dead and slender flower- 
stems of old specimens. 
To the admirers of the curious, then, no tribe can equal the Orchidacese in 
interest. And it is to be remarked, that they mostly combine extreme loveliness 
with this singularity ; so that those who grow them chiefly as curiosities have the! 
gratification of witnessing in them some of the most sweetly enchanting things 
which fertile nature anywhere begets. 
ON PRUNING AND TRAINING PLANTS TO FORM 
STANDARDS. 
In the kingdom of vegetable nature no plants are to be found which of them- 
selves assume the forms which cultivators distinguish by the name of “ standard,” 
except those which are decided trees. All shrubs and minor classes which we 
meet with in a standard state, are rendered so artificially, or by some peculiarity 
of treatment. In the same way, trees are reduced to a comparatively dwarf 
condition. 
Such changes of character are obviously induced in many instances for conve- 
nience ; as circumstances will often render it next to impossible that a standard can 
be grown where a dwarf might be easily introduced, and the converse. But there 
