1884 .] 
CYPEIPEDIUM CALURUM.-COOL TREATMENT FOE TREE FERNS. 
145 
CYPEIPEDIUM CALURUM. 
[Plate 619.] 
f NE of the charmmg hybrid Lady’s Slippers 
for which Orchid growers are indebted 
to Messrs. Yeitch & Sons, of Chelsea. 
It is the produce of C. longifolium 
crossed by C. Sedeni, and is a noble plant, 
apparently as free-growing as C. longifolium 
itself. This vigour of growth is, indeed, a 
remarkable characteristic, and not the least of 
the merits of these hybrid novelties. 
The plant forms a thick tuft of elongate 
channelled acute green leaves, from amongst 
which spring up the tall branched brownish- 
red stems, each bearing several flowers in 
succession. These flowers, as will be seen by 
our figure, are large, being five inches in their 
lateral and three and a half inches in their 
vertical expansion. The dorsal sepal is 
oblong ovate, pale green, with longitudinal 
purplish ribs, and slightly flushed on the out¬ 
side with red ; the united lower sepals are 
broadly ovate and much smaller. The petals 
are broadest at the base, narrowing to the apex, 
two ana a half inches long, curled, pale green 
COOL TREATMENT 
^T\ TOO prevalent opinion seems to exist 
regarding the atmospheric conditions 
j\Q requisite for the W’ell-being of stove 
and greenhouse Ferns generally, espe¬ 
cially the tree-like species that succeed in a 
greenhouse temperature, namely, that they want 
a large amount of moisture in the atmosphere 
—really more than is good for them. When 
the different arborescent kinds were first intro¬ 
duced to this country in quantity sufficient to 
allow cultivators to become fairly acquainted 
with them, the general impression was that 
they required more warmth to keep them in a 
thriving condition than they need with a 
vapoury state of the atmos^^here around them. 
The result of this was that the air of the 
house in which they were located during the 
season of growth, was often kept at the point 
of saturation ; and in many cases this line of 
cultivation has been to some extent continued, 
through which the fronds attain undue dimen¬ 
sions, and overgrow the smaller kinds near 
them, the plants often growing to a size such 
as makes them too big for uie houses in which 
they are kept, the heads becoming dispropor- 
in the centre at the base with an edging of 
rosy-red on each side an eighth of an inch 
broad, which meets towards the apex where it is 
wholly bright rosy-red : the colour deeper and 
more glossy on the outer surface. The lip is 
very bold and conspicuous, oblong obtuse, 
nearly two inches long, of a deep rosy-red 
flushed with brown in front, paler behind, the 
sides deeply indexed with a roundish pro¬ 
jecting lobe at the front angle of the aper¬ 
ture, creamy-white with irregular spots of 
rosy purple, the inside of the pouch being 
more distinctly spotted. The staminode is 
greenish-white, clothed with short stiff hairs, 
transversely oblong or reniform with an 
apiculus, and having a fringe of dark purple 
hairs on the front margin, the sterile lobe 
roundish fleshy greenish-white and hairy. 
No more beautiful subject can be imagined 
than a well-hloomed specimen of this and its 
kindred hybrids, some further notice of which 
will be found at page 8 of the present volume. 
—T, Moore. 
FOR TREE FERNS. 
tionately large compared with the stems, with 
the still further inconvenience that the plants, 
like all others when kept in an atmosphere 
more humid than they require, are less enduring 
in their leaves and are much more liable to 
become a prey to insects. 
Such species as Alsophila australis, Cgathea 
dealbata, C. medullaris, C. Smithii, Dicksonia 
antarctica, and D. squarrosa, need little more 
moisture in the atmosphere than ordinary 
greenhouse plants. In common with other 
Ferns, these tree kinds require plenty of water 
to the roots so as to keep the soil quite moist, 
particularly through the season of growth; 
never, even during the winter when at rest 
should they be allowed to get so dry as most 
plants will bear. Neither is there anything 
gained by the daily syringing of the stems 
often practised, and which is quite unnecessary, 
except in the case of newly imported plants 
which are usually nothing more than bare, 
rootless, and frondless trunks. 
Another mistake in the cultivation of Tree 
Ferns is giving them more root room than 
they require; it is no unusual thing to see 
K 
