178 
THE FLOKIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[December, 
placed over a slight hotbed early in April ; 
in fact in just such a place as is generally 
used for sowing stocks and asters. As 
soon as we could handle them they were 
pricked out on a warm border, near a wall 
in some light rich soil, and finally transplanted 
with a slight ball attached to the roots into 
the beds above referred to. 
I mention these details to show that it is a 
tender annual and will repay a little extra kind 
treatment.—H. J. Clayton, Grimston. 
PROPAGATING DEN DROBIUMS. 
RENTHAM has long been known to be 
famous for its Orchid cultivation, and 
now, as we learn from a passage in the 
Gardeners’ Chronicle (xx., 896), and as 
we have seen for ourselves, it is becoming 
equally famous for Orchid propagation. This 
is what T. B. says on the subject:— 
Amongst the very large number of select 
kinds of Orchids so well grown here, there is 
much to interest those who are fond of these 
plants. Some of the rarer kinds of Dendro- 
bium are being propagated freely. Mr. Stevens 
got a plant of the fine hybrid D. Ainsworthii 
as soon as it was obtainable ; this was subse¬ 
quently made into several that have grown to 
a considerable size, one has fourteen strong 
leads. He has set to work to propagate five 
hundred plants of this variety, and it will not 
take many years to get them up strong at the 
present rate ; the better part of a hundred are 
now well established with good bulbs, in many 
cases nine or ten inches long, and strong in 
proportion. The propagation is from bits of 
the back bulbs cut in lengths composed of a 
single joint in some cases, in others with two 
or three joints ; these were taken off last year 
and laid close together in little shallow earthen¬ 
ware pans on a little damp material, kept close 
up to the glass in a warm house, where they 
made bulbs about a couple of inches long. 
This year the young growths are from four 
to six times larger than those of last season ; 
each plant is now in a little pan hung up near 
the roof. 
The propagation of JDendrohiums and other 
Orchids with jointed bulbs is not by any 
means new, having been practised most likely 
since Orchids of this description were first 
cultivated, and certainly more with Dendro- 
biums than with most other species, but few 
have attempted so much as Mr. Stevens has, 
or been so successful. Moreover the result of 
his practice is instructive, both with the variety 
named and others similarly operated on. In 
all cases if the last bulb formed the year before, 
was used for propagation, the cuttings made 
from it were found of little use, as they would 
not start into growth like those made of older 
bulbs, but lay for months alive, yet without 
moving. In every case the increase in the 
number of plants has been at a sacrifice in 
the strength of the old ones, for although all 
from which the cuttings were taken were as 
strong as they could be, and have since been 
as well treated as before, the growths since 
made are reduced in strength proportionate 
to the number of old bulbs removed. Plants 
that have had the penultimate bulbs cut away, 
leaving the leaders untouched, have this sea¬ 
son made bulbs not more than two-thirds as 
large as those produced last summer. 
These results of the propagation of Dendro- 
biums do something to confute the mischievous 
nonsense that recently has been set afloat about 
Dendrobiums and other Orchids being bene¬ 
fited by cutting away their bulbs—-a piece of 
inconsistency that does not seem to have any 
other object except trying to make it appear 
that a new discovery had been made, whereas 
the result of such work was long enough 
known to those who had already practised it 
with the object of increasing the number of 
their plants. 
ARALIA CHABRIERI. 
S ERE we have one of the many hand¬ 
some plants of the fine-foliaged class, 
which are temporarily relegated to the 
v Aralia group. It has been intro¬ 
duced from New Caledonia to the Continental 
gardens, and thence to our own, and is a 
remarkably handsome plant with a peculiarly 
dense leafage, and stocky habit of growth. 
The leaves, which are evergreen alternate 
and spreading, are about a foot in length, 
closely set on the stem, and pinnately divided 
into long narrow linear opposite leaflets of 
leathery texture which are from six to nine 
inches long; they are of a deep green colour 
with a stoutislr crimson midrib, and hence the 
plant takes on something of the aspect of a 
Terminalia. 
The species is of free growth, and likely to 
