108 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[November 21. 
a wiseacre to us the other day, “ I have always treated 
my plauts so.” Then the obvious answer is—At last, 
even the hardy chrysanthemums can endure it no 
I longer. 
Another cause of our show chrysanthemums proving 
| so generally inferior to the open-border specimens may 
he, the tendency we notice in Horticultural Societies to 
have their exhibition day very early in November. This 
compels the exhibitor to hasten his chrysanthemums: 
they have to he put into moist heat—and we all know 
that no other florist’s flower is more impatient of such 
forcing. This was never more unmistakeably evidenced 
than at the Hampshire Horticultural Show on the 11th 
instant. There are some most successful cultivators of 
the chrysanthemum in the habit of exhibiting there, 
and they had the greatest difficulty in bringing suffi¬ 
ciently forward their collections, though the chrysanthe 
mums in the open gardens for miles round had been in 
full beauty for more than a week previously. Let us 
recommend to all Horticultural Societies never to have 
their November show, if chrysanthemums are an object 
for patronage, before the 20th of the month. No flower 
is easier to keep in its prime than the chrysanthemum, 
and none more difficult to hasten into perfection; and, 
he it remembered, that the object to he attained in 
growing this flower is not ohtainiug it at an unnatural 
season, hut obtaining perfect blooms upon vigorous 
well-foliaged plants. 
NEW PLANTS. 
THEIR PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHIES. 
White Ruby-lipped Cattleya (Cattleya labiata alba). 
— Paxton's Flower Garden, 117. —The genus Cattleya 
was named by Dr. Lindley more than twenty years now 
passed, in compliment to W. Cattley, Esq., of Barnet, 
then a celebrated grower of exotic plants; labiata, the 
specific name, has reference to the labellum, or lip, of the 
flower; the petals and sepals of this variety being creamy 
white, the name alba refers to that colour; the labellum is 
of a deep purplish rose. At present, all the curious forms 
known among orchids have been reduced into seven 
great divisions, and these are severally named after some 
conspicuous genus, or group, in each. Thus, beginning 
with Malaxece, named after Malaxis, mostly weeds, we 
come, in succession, to Ppidendreie, from Epidendrum, 
Vandea, after Vanda, and Ophrece, called after Ophrys. 
In this division, we may observe, stand our own native 
orchids. These are followed by the fifth group, which 
is called after Arethusa, the sixth is after Neottia, and 
the last after the Cypripedium. In these seven divisions 
are included nearly 3000 species, in almost 400 genera, 
and all having more or less family likeness in their dis¬ 
tinctive sections. Thus, Cattleya is in the section of the 
Epidendrums, and the nearest genus to it, or alliance, is 
Lcelia, —all of them fine handsome stove orchids, so often 
referred to by Mr. Appleby. The appearance of this 
splendid variety of one of the best of the old Cattleyas 
brings a more recent introduction, C. Mossice, into such 
contact with labiata, as to render them specifically one 
and the same thing. Indeed, this is the case in many 
more instances of this favourite family. The many 
attempts, from year to year, to increase their number in 
species, are fast going on to prove the difference to he 
more in the words than in the appearances they exhibit. 
Yet so various are the aspects they assume, that there 
is scarcely a common animal to which some of them have 
not been likened, more particularly insects and reptiles ; 
and, notwithstanding the strange forms some of them 
take in the forests of the tropics in both hemispheres, 
they have not surpassed in vagaries some of those ter¬ 
restrial orchids we sometimes hear of from the settlers 
in New Holland. Yet, with all their strange aspects, 
botanists have reduced their flowers to three sepals, an¬ 
swering to the calyx in other plants, three petals, and 
the lip, or odd petal, which is, in most cases, very dif¬ 
ferent from the form of a petal; with the column, which 
are the parts of fructification consolidated together into 
one body; hut the lip or labellum is the part which 
takes the strangest forms. 
Mr. Appleby’s papers on orchids render any account 
of the culture of Cattleya from us superfluous, hut we 
will conclude with a biographical sketch of the species 
and the new variety. 
Cattleya labiata was introduced accidentally in 1818, 
by Mr. Swainson employing some of its stems, &c„ for 
packing safely some boxes of mosses he was forwarding 
to Sir W. Hooker, from Brazil! Nothing more was 
known of its native place until the late Mr. Gardner 
visited the neighbourhood of Rio Janeiro a few years 
since; and he thus writes about its dwelling-place:—“ On 
the edge of a precipice on the eastern side of the Pedra 
Bonita (a mountain fifteen miles from Rio), I first met 
with the beautiful Cattleya labiata, which, with some 
