1877. ] 
LINUM TRIGYNUM. 
151 
matter what. Now-a-days, collectors find it to be both their interest and satis¬ 
faction in every way to secure first-rate varieties, very frequently at whatever coat. 
Take Odontoglossum^ for instance, no matter whether it be Alexandrce^ Feacatorti^ 
triumphans^ grande^ citrosmwn^ cirrJiosum^ or any down the line of species in 
any catalogue, and some sorts, if they be known to be superexcellent, will bring 
as many pounds at a sale as others will bring shillings. And so it is with 
Cattlega, with Vanda^ with Aerides^ with Saccolahium, and as I said before 
with every popular Orchid. It may be form, or substance, or colour, or exquisite 
S 3 '^mmetry, or all combined, but the individual that possesses all these in greatest 
degree will be run upon by the savans in the question of flower-value, if I might 
so express myself. 
And why should this be wondered at, when we look to other plants ? Take the 
Flamingo plant {Anthuriwii Scherzerianum)^ for instance, and if you go to Stevens’ 
one day, you will find a big plant of indifferent form or colour, or both combined, 
go, so to speak, for an old song ; go another day, when such a variety as Mr. Ward’s 
is selling, and one outbids another until a plucky member of the trade, by deputy, 
buys a not very big plant, but a plant unique in every other way, for eighty guineas. 
And this is rational bidding, too, for the worth of the money is there ; very unlike 
the fever-heat I myself once saw running up, by what I thought at the time 
injudicious bidding, the price of an unproved Fendrohimn Wardianum to one 
hundred guineas. 
I have, therefore, to congratulate the “ general assembly ” of florists on the 
good work they have done, are doing, and doubtless will continue to do, in bring- 
ing together the whole family of plants, from the commonest border flower to the 
most aristocratic orchid, so as to subject them all to severe eye-criticism. It is 
only in this way that the best can be taken and placed, and the worst left and 
uncertificated. To my thinking, it will be an additional attraction to both your 
pictorial and descriptive pages, if you add a few choice varieties of Orchids to your 
excellent illustrations; it will only be carrying out and completing, as far as that 
can be done, up to the present time, the whole domain of florists’ work which 
you have, in recent years, so ably and so well undertaken.— James Anderson, 
Meadow Bank Nurseries.^ JJddingstone., N.B. 
LINUM TKIGYNUM. 
HIS plant, though introduced into the country during the last century, is 
not so often met with, at least in quantity, as it deserves to be. It is 
f generally seen under adverse circumstances—a few old plants, it may be, 
dwindling in some corner of the stove, eaten up with red-spider, its chief 
enemy of the insect tribe. To have it in good condition, a young stock must be 
raised annually ; cuttings should be inserted in silver sand, and placed in a brisk 
bottom-heat during March ; a cucumber-frame at work will answer admirably 
for this. When sufficiently rooted, pot off singly into sixty-sized pots, using a 
compost of equal parts fibry loam, leaf-mould, and rotten dung, with a good 
