PARK AND CEMETERY 
157 
Garden Plants— Their Geography— XCV, 
Orchid ales. 
The Epidendrum, Orchis, and Cypripedium Alli- 
ance. 
This is a large group of singular shrubs, climbers, 
and herbs found in all parts of the world, except the 
Vick's Magazine, 
CYPRIPEDIUM SPECTABILE. 
very cold or dry regions. In the tropics they are often 
epiphytal shrubs or pseudobulbous perennials, in 
temperate regions, terrestrial tuberous and fibrous 
rooted herbaceous plants. There are eight tribes, 380 
genera and 5,050 species or more. Bentham and 
Hooker included the hydrocharideae, etc., which oth- 
ers maybe as reasonably place near the Alismales. 
There certainly seems little correspondence between 
Vallisneria or the Stratiotes and Orchids, other 
than their tripetaloideus flowers inferior ovary and nu- 
merous minute seeds. But the Thalassieae in herbaria 
may connect with the Burmanniae in a way of which I 
know nothing, and I find some botanists in the same 
fix. The group is commonly placed at the begin- 
ning of the Monocotyledonous endogeus or plants 
with one seed leaf. Their stems when present are 
mostly destitute of a central pith, but are made up of 
irregular bundles of tubular tissue, as may be well seen 
in a section of corn stalk ; their hardest wood, if 
any, is outside, and their full diameter is often at- 
tained before they lengthen ; the leaves are commonly 
parallel veined, and the flowers are generally arranged 
in threes. In the Orchid group the flowers often as- 
sume most fantastic and abnormal shapes. *Thev are 
sometimes most beautifully colored and deliciously 
fragrant, and it is to these circumstances and their re- 
markable generative processes that they owe their re- 
pute. There is a very large proportion of dull and in- 
significant species, however. 
Gardeners can scarcely be said to have mastered the 
cultivation of the hardy herbs. They are saprophytes, 
or perhaps more frequently than is supposed epiphytal 
in one or other stage of growth upon the stems or 
roots of the humble plants among which they invari- 
ably grow. There has not been sufficient attention 
paid to their requirements, and they have so rarely 
been naturalized in gardens that I have never in my 
life met with an instance. They are mere lodgers. 
Often they are transplanted at the wrong time, often 
no doubt they get wrong exposures, improper degrees 
of moisture, maybe unsuitable soils, and the conse- 
quence is that all but enthusiasts become discouraged 
with them. Yet several hardy kinds are very beau- 
tiful. As a rule the best time to move an orebid is 
just before growth commences. The plants must be 
marked during the previous summer, and when trans- 
planted disturbed as little as possible. I should be 
CYPRIPEDIUM ACAULE. 
disposed to lift all of the plants accompanying them a 
little beyond the radius of their roots, and would pack 
the turves in soap boxes with a side knocked out, so that 
they mlight easily be slided onto previously prepared 
