June 3. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
147 
next “ ray of dawn,” and arrange their plants without 
encroaching on the Sabbath, as they are compelled to 
do after every Saturday’s exhibition of the Horticultural 
Society at Chiswick. 
They say a poacher makes the best game-keeper; 
but I doubt it. The meaning must be—that he who 
kuows the private working of a concern, although 
he might not be able to work it himself, ought to 
be the best judge, or, at least, a good judge of its 
proficiency or merit. Going upon this scent, the 
first thing which struck me as most remarkable at this 
show, was the great numbers in the “ miscellaneous ” 
department. It would certainly seem very harsh to say 
to an exhibitor at the outer gate—“ You shall not come 
in here with such stuff as that; ” be it known, there¬ 
fore, to people far off in the country, that these great 
shows create as much interest round London as a 
“ queen’s day,” or when Her Majesty appears in public. 
Everybody wants to see the show, but everybody cannot, 
or will not, pay the fiddler if he could. But if he brings 
in anything at all creditable in the plant way, he be¬ 
comes an exhibitor, and, as such, is entitled to a pass, 
or free ticket, to see the show. Hence it is that odds 
and ends, middlings and tailings, find such free access 
to the miscellaneous department of a London show; and 
hence, too, that it would be easier for the judges to 
thrash barley the whole day by the hand-flail, than 
determine the relative merits of the “entries” in this 
part of the exhibition. One man brings in two Caper- 
dollies, the only difference between them being that they 
are both alike. Another man neglects to water his 
Stockadoos, and their leaves droop or prick up their ears 
in the agonies of death, and sure enough they ought to 
pass off for something new. A third, at the eleventh 
hour, finds out that a turnip radish is no radish at all, 
but a new genus , and he, too, must be as far in as any 
of the rest, and so on they go to the end of the chapter. 
I would clap on such “ a stinger,” that would make this 
a chapter of accidents. 
The first note I entered was on the Obchids, for I 
never saw such a sight in my life. The whole of one 
side of the grand stand was covered with them, in two 
rows; and out of the whole you could not pick more 
than half-a-dozen that were not full-grown specimens. 
The competition was as closely contested as the spe¬ 
cimens were well-grown. Mrs. Lawrence, who carried 
off the first prize, did so only by half-a-neck. I recollect 
the day when her rival, J. H. Schroder, Esq., could only 
muster for the small collections; and if he goes on at 
the same rate for another season or so, the medal-baskets 
at Ealing Park will not feel so heavy as they have done 
for some years. Indeed, were it not for three or four 
plants in the back row of the second collection, Number 
One would have come in second. Of those three or 
four, one was Vanda teres. This most beautiful flower, 
and the flower of that genus, barring Ccerulea, is an un¬ 
fortunate plant after all; the habit is so bad, that you 
cannot make it appear as if in luxuriant growth, though 
it be grown ever so well; while Sobralia maerantha, with 
an equally bad habit of growing too far from home, is 
always a healthy-looking subject. I never saw a closer- 
grown specimen of it before, with so many flowers open 
at one time. There was another large plant of it in 
another collection, equally well grown, but with only 
one single blossom open that day, so that for exhibitions 
this beautiful flower is as uncertain as an April shower, 
while Dendrobium nobile and ccerulescens can hardly be 
caught amiss. The same with the two Phalcenopsis ama- 
bile and grandijlora, they are in bloom almost all the year 
round. Phalamopsis Lobii was the newest plant among 
them. It will never be quite so large as amabile, I fear; 
but it will be more beautiful, owing to the rich reddish 
purple of the lip. Anguloa Glowesii is a noble bloom, 
and of the same colour all over as the old double yellow 
tulip. Anguloa Euckerii, with flowers of equal size and 
substance, is not so rich in colour, being a brown cop- j 
pery tint, what they call cupreum. Lailia majalis, a | 
hardy Alpine orchid, which one seldom sees at an exhi¬ 
bition, was there, with one flower open, and that one 1 
of the gayest of the family. The old Dendrobium pul- 
chellum was as full of flower as a new cineraria. D. 
Dalhousianum, with a rich yellow-ground colour, has a 
large, rich, purple blotch on each side of the flower, 
looking as if two patches of rich velvet were laid on the 
surface; but I think, for a lady’s flower, D. moniliforme 
was the gayest of this gay assemblage. The flowers 
come from naked shoots, like those of nobile, and they 
are of the same form, but larger, and the colour a lively, 
rich, red-purple, all over very nearly. Cattlega Mossice, 
Skinnerii, and intermedia, always look full and rich, and 
are easy to grow and flower; not so, however, the old 
butterfly plant, Oncidium papilio aud Epulendrum Skin¬ 
nerii ; but two of the former, and one of the latter, were 
at this show, but not nearly so good as we have seen 
them. Fifteen years ago, you could see large masses of i 
the Spanish Main Butterfly at every exhibition. Some 
years afterwards it was nearly out of cultivation, and 
now they have found out the way to grow it well again. 
At this exhibition, the Royal children noticed the butter¬ 
flies more than any in the tent. Messrs. Wray sent up 
from Cheltenham, eight or nine years ago, better examples 
of the lovely E. Sldnnerii than any that has been grown, 
or, at least, exhibited from near London. It was grown 
in nothing but little bits of sticks, put together like a 
rook’s nest. The most difficult to grow and flower well, 
Lcelia cinnabarina, was never seen in such good order 
as at this show in Mr. Schroder’s collection. It was the 
best example of good gardening at the exhibition. Its 
long wavy spikes, covered with flowers of a colour which 
no other orchid produces, except, perhaps, Epideiulrum 
aurantiacum— the very colour of the yolk of an egg. 
The Yellow Epidendrum itself was better here than was 
ever exhibited in my time. Trichophilia tortilis, a very 
curious thing, was a dense mass, covered all over with 
flowers; but T. coccinea, a beautiful thing by the way, 
is sadly named; it ought to be cupreum or fuscum, in 
Latin, and muddley, in English. There is no decided 
colour in it, certainly not a coccinea (scarlet) colour. 
The Cow’s-horns orchid from Honduras, Schomburgkia 
tibicinis, was there. Gathered flowers of this look very 
beautiful, but they make no show on the plant, being 
so awkwardly produced. Just think of a fishing-rod 
growing out of a cow’s-liorn, the small end bent down 
with the weight of the flowers, so that they all droop as 
if they were dying, and you have this orchid to the letter. 
Odontoglossum citrosmum, Bolbophyllum Henshalli, and 
Zygopetalum crinitum, are real gems, which new be¬ 
ginners need not fear to tackle with. Then, for the 
curious, what can surpass the Lady’s Slipper, with the 
fastening of a sandal hanging down a long way from 
the legs; they call this Cypripedium caudatum. Then 
Acineta Humboldti, pushing down its flower-spikes 
through the bottom of its nest, putting you in mind, as 
it were, of a second thought of nature, after a trial or 
two at making Stanliopeas. This second thought led 
the botanicals on the wrong scent for years as to which 
were or were not Slanhopeas or Acinetas. 
Time fails, and space gives warning that I must not 
go on so, although, if I had my own way, I should like 
to describe Vandas, Aerides, Phaius, Saccolabs, Bur- ' 
lingtous, Calanths, Oncids, and all the rest of them, 
after my own fashion, but I shall stop now at Oncid; 
regretting the absence of the large masses of Oncidium 
lanceanum we used to see, but perhaps it was too soon 
for them, although we had one nice little plant of it in 
good bloom, and also regretting that I was much dis¬ 
appointed with Lacaena bicolor, which I never saw in 
such good condition before, 
