THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
ft distinguished patron of botany and gardening. It 
1 belongs to the Natural Order of Ginchonads (Cincho- 
nacese), which, until recently, held but an inferior degree 
as a section of Maddersvorts (Rubiacese), although it is 
the most extensive, and one of the most important, of 
all the Natural Orders of plants of which we have 
knowledge. It includes a large number of plants of the 
greatest benefit to man, not only in the countries they 
inhabit, but to the world at large, as medicinal agents, 
acting as tonics, febrifuges, emetics, and purgatives. 
The bark of Portlandia hexandra, a tree in French Guiana, 
is nearly as potent against fevers as that of Cinchona, the 
Peruvian Bark of Commerce ; and that of Portlandia grandi- 
fiora possesses the same properties, but in a less powerful 
degree. The Coffee-tree is also a Cinchonad ; nor are plants 
of surpassing beauty deficient in the order, for it includes 
Portlandias, Ixoras, Gardenias, Bouvardias, Rondeletias, Ma- 
nettias, Luculias, and many others ; and all of them may be 
known at first sight by their stipules and opposite entire 
leaves. The usual place for stipules is immediately under 
the leaf, as in the Pelargonium ; but in all Cinclionads the 
stipule is above the leaf, or is interpetiolar, as botanists say. 
Portlandia lias live stamens, and one stigma in each flower, 
by which it is referred to the first order of the fifth class in 
the system of Linnaeus, Pentandria Monogynia. As they 
inhabit the hottest parts of the tropics, like the majority of 
their race, Portlandias require the stimulus of a moist hot 
stove until them season’s growth is finished, but a long 
repose in a cooler and more dry atmosphere in winter is 
essential to cause them to flower with freedom. 
Portlandia plalantha was received in 1850, from the "West 
Indies, by Messrs. Lucombe and Co., of Exeter. It is an 
evergreen stove shrub, about twenty inches high, and which 
continues to produce its bold white blossoms all the summer. 
Leaves opposite, almost stalkless,pointed oval, leathery, deep 
glossy green. Stipules broadly triangular. Flowers funnel- 
shaped, five-ribbed, with short stalks, and limb of corolla in 
four spreading spear-head divisions. It is easily propagated 
by cuttings, and thrives in a soil of equal parts sandy loam 
and leaf-mould. 
Spotted-flowered Ladies’ Slipper (Cypripedium 
guttatum).—Gardeners Magazine of Botany, ii. 68.— 
This is a welcome addition to our hardy terrestrial 
orchids, requiring the same kind of treatment as the 
North American species, such as C. pubescens and spec- 
tabilis, and though neither new to science nor to the 
gardening world, it is a fit subject for record among our 
biographies of new or rare plants; for rare we hold it to 
be, notwithstanding that it was introduced into this 
country in 1828, and we believe soon disappeared 
through some defect in the management. Let us now 
express a hope, however, that as our knowledge of the 
[May 8. ( 
i 
various requirements of air plants has been crowned 
with the most perfect success, our gardeners will give a 
share of their acquired experience to the cultivation of 
such beautiful plants as even the genus Cypripedium 
can now furnish. 
The subject before us is a native of swamps or boggy j 
places in Siberia, where its roots are held in high esti- | 
mation, medicinally, against epilepsy, as those of various i 
species of Orchis are in Europe, and of Eulophia in 
India, for making the nutritious substance called Salep, 
or Saloop. It was figured and described more than a 
century ago (1739) at St. Petersburg, in a work on the j 
plants peculiar to the Russian provinces. M. Van 
Houtte, a nurseryman at Ghent, was fortunate enough 
to flower it last season, when it was again brought under 
the notice of collectors of rarities, by a good figure and 
full description in a Belgian periodical [Flore des Serves). 
Cypripedium guttatum has stems of about six inches 
high, each stem bearing a pair of acutely-oval stem-clasping 
leaves, and crowned with one flower, which is white and 
beautifully blotched with rosy-purple. 
The genus Cypripedium was named by Linnasus, and is 
derived from Kypris, an ancient name of Venus, arid podion, 
a slipper, in allusion to the shape of the labellum or lip—the 
nectary of former botanists. “ In the centre of the flower 
is situated the large hollow nectarium, almost as large as a 
bird’s egg, shaped like a wooden shoe.”— {Miller.) Cypri¬ 
pedium forms a section of the order of orchids (Orcliidacfe), 
to which section nine or ten other genera are referred, but 
about which very little is yet known. This section is distin¬ 
guished by having the two side stamens with fertile anthers, 
or pollen bags, and the middle one barren ; the very opposite 
of the arrangement of all other orchids whatever. The 
middle stamen in them being the antheriferous one; be¬ 
sides, we have a free distinct style in Cypripedium, but con¬ 
solidated with the stamens, or their embryos in the rest of 
the order; hence, the origin of the reason why orchids have 
been called monandrous, or one stamened, by Linmean 
students; whereas they are only so apparently, or by defect. 
Low herbaceous plants like this, from high northern lati¬ 
tudes, are not influenced by frost, or sudden changes of the 
atmosphere, as similar plants are in more temperate climes, 
because of the great depth of snow over them ; hence the 
reason why they require the protection of a frame if they 
are grown in pots in this country; and, we believe, that a 
bed of them, and of similar plants, ought to have a deep 
covering of dry mould heaped over it as soon as the leaves 
perish, and the covering so shaped as to throw off the wet. 
THE ERUIT- GARDEN. 
Vines In-doors. —It is now high time to offer some 
remarks applicable to vines in various stages of their 
j growth ; for, at this period, it may be presumed that 
some have fruit ripening, others are in the swelling- 
off state, and the late or winter grapes should now 
be in course of disbudding. Those on the eve of ripen¬ 
ing require a much drier atmosphere, and the slower 
they ripen, the better will be both their colour and 
flavour. The vine can only prepare accretive matter 
according to its extent of leaf surface, and the amount of 
light; that is, granting that the root action is sound, 
and that heat enough is secured to keep up the reci¬ 
procation between root and leaf, and a lively circulation 
of the fluids in the latter. This point will, probably, be 
better attained by a temperature averaging but little 
over 60°, than by a higher one, admitting, however, an | 
advance of 10° or 12° during sunshine. Abundance of 
air should be given in the day, and, if consistent with ! 
the other inmates of the structure, hv all means a trifling • 
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