28 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
September 12, 1885. 
ORCHID NOTES AND GLEANINGS. 
The Catasetums and Cycnoches ( continued 
from page 12). —Every district in South America seems 
to have a Catasetum peculiar to it, and each differs so 
much in colour, and particularly in the lip and its ap¬ 
pendages, that it is not to be wondered at that the 
whole form a curious and interesting study, if not a 
botanical puzzle. Formerly the genus was divided into 
Myanthus, which generally bore many attenuated 
flowers, Monachanthus usually having fewer flowers 
with large, fleshy, pouch-like or helmet-shaped labellum, 
and true Catasetum ; but more recent research fails to 
show that such an arrangement is consistent, and hence 
all are included in Catasetum. So widely different, 
however, is, for example, C. callosum, with its large 
spikes of thirty or so flowers like spiders, from C. 
macrocarpum, with its high wax-like flowers, that it is 
not surprising that some attempt should be made to 
separate them. Most of the varieties have a pleasing 
aromatic odour. They should be grown with Mor- 
modes, as directed at p. 812, vol. i. 
Catasetum abruptum.— Flowers six to twelve, 
drooping on an upright spike ; sepals and petals green, 
closing over a large fleshy yellow lip. Flowered by 
Mr. Moore, at Glasnevin, 1841. 
C. atratum bears about a dozen flowers on a stout 
spike ; sepals and petals green, barred with crimson ; 
lip yellowish and fringed. 
C. barbatum. —Flowers borne ten or fifteen on a 
spike ; sepals and petals bright green freckled and 
spotted with brown ; lip bearing long beard-like fringe. 
C. barbatum PEOBOSCIDEUM is the same as the 
preceding, but bears in addition a curious long snout¬ 
like projection on the middle of the lip. 
C. callosum. —This, like most of the other species, 
varies much in colour, some of the varieties being pale 
reddish green and others all purple. Sydney Courtauld, 
Esq., of Booking Place, Braintree, flowered a fine dark 
variety this summer with several spikes, each having 
twenty to thirty blooms like winged insects. 
C. cassideum. —Flowers large ; sepals and petals 
greenish, abruptly ascending; lip yellow, wax-like, 
helmet-shaped. 
C. cernuum (teifidum). —Flowers bright green, 
spotted red ; lip three cleft ; column yellow 
C. Christyanum. —A very curious species, very 
variable in colour, the original having reddish brown 
sepals and petals, and curious green lip, with brown 
fringe on the side lobes. Mr. B. S. Williams figures it 
in the Orchid Album, t. 83. The variety obscurum is 
nearly black, the side lacinhe of the lip being rich 
purple, and the middle brownish olive. Introduced by 
Mr. T. Christy, of Malvern House, Sydenham. 
C. cornutum has fifteen to twenty flowers on a spike, 
green, spotted brown ; the lip being curiously elongated, 
toothed, and horned. 
C. cristatum is a curious species, with pale green 
sepals and petals, and white fringed lip. It bloomed 
in the Gardens at Chiswick, in 1824. 
C. deltoideum.— Sepals and petals green, barred 
brown ; lip triangular, violet, with green centre. 
C. discolor. —Flowers thick in substance ; sepals 
greenish, striped rose ; petals rose ; lip green, stained 
with brown, fringed at the edge, and shaped like a bowl. 
C. fimbriatum. —Narrow sepals and petals, pink 
to green, spotted purple ; lip large, fleshy, fringed, 
green spotted purple, very fragrant. 
C. fimbriatum fissum is a very handsome variety, 
with greenish flowers, spotted purple, and lip much 
fringed. Haynderii and Legrelli are also varieties of 
fimbriatum. 
C. fuliginosum. —This is a rather poor variety, with 
a sooty tinge over the flowers. 
C. globiferum is a curious species, with globe-like 
flowers, the sepals and petals closing over the large 
round blossoms, and leaving but a small aperture in 
front. Flowers reddish brown, the prominent part of 
the lip bluish white. It flowered first at Glasnevin. 
C. gnomus somewhat resembles fimbriatum, but has 
a deep pouch-like labellum, fringed in front. Flowers 
greenish, marked with chocolate. 
C. intf.rregmum. —Flowers large and fleshy yellow¬ 
ish green ; lip marked inside with crimson 
C. laminatum. —Sepals and petals reddish ; lip 
white, curiously fringed with an incurved edge, and fur¬ 
nished with a strange looking raised keel up the middle. 
C. lanciferum is probably a variety of barbatum, 
differing only in the unreliable points of colour, and 
the arrangement of the liorn-like processes on the lip. 
C. Lansbergii appears to be a variety of callosum. 
Flowers green, spotted purple. 
C. luridum. —Flowers greenish yellow, speckled 
with crimson, and closing up as in globiferum, but 
with scoop-like projection of the labellum. 
C. macrocarpum. —This is the highest of the tri- 
den tatum section, having large waxy flowers, each four 
or five inches across ; sepals and petals greenish yellow, 
with purple spots ; lip yellow. It may be all yellow. 
It is well figured by Mr. B. S. Williams in the Orchid 
Album, t. 189. 
C. medium. —A variety with numerous small flowers. 
Sepals and petals greenish yellow, with brown trans¬ 
verse bars ; lip yellowish, with red side laciniie ; column 
the same colour, with purple spots at the base. 
C. Naso.— This is a most extraordinary and weird 
looking variety from Caraccas. Sepals and petals 
emerald-green, marked with crimson, lip most curiously 
cut and fringed, the lower part continuing into a 
long nose-like projection. Centre of lip bright red and 
yellow. 
C. phasma. —Appears to be intermediate between 
C. gnomus and sanguineum. Sepals and petals green 
with brown blotches : lip whitish. 
C. purum (inapterum). —Flowers wholly greenish 
white, the sepals and petals rising straight above the 
lip. 
C. Russellianum. —Flowered at Woburn Abbey in 
1840. Flowers twenty, on drooping spike ; sepals and 
petals greenish white, closing over the white, green- 
striped lip. 
C. saccatum. —Sepals and petals yellowish, freckled 
with purple : lip curiously pouched, yellowish. 
C. sanguineum. —Like C. fimbriatum. Sepals and 
petals turned upwards, green spotted with red. 
C. spinosum. —Green barred with brown, lip fringed. 
C. scurra. —This very distinct dwarf species flowered 
with Sir Trevor Lawrence in 1877. Flowers eight 
to twelve on a drooping raceme, pale straw or waxy 
white ; lip trifid, the middle portion elongated, with 
a broad fringed expansion in front. A native of 
Demerara. 
C. tabulare. —A very curious species with reddish 
green sepals and petals, and broad shoe-like lip, 
singularly furnished with a broad creamy white, thick 
wax-like table, occupying nearly the whole of the sur¬ 
face of the lip, which turns up at the foot of the table, 
and forms a trench round it. 
C. tabulare brachyglossa. —This is a very fine 
form of the type which Professor Reichenbach named 
for me. 
C. tridentatum. —Flowered in the Chelsea Botanic 
Gardens in 1824. A good idea of it may be gained by 
imagining a smaller form of the plant Mr. B. S. 
Williams figures in the Orchid Album, t. 189. Flowers 
large, greenish yellow. 
C. tridentatum Claveringii has sepals and petals 
greenish outside, reddish in ; lip yellow. 
C. tigrinum. —Allied to barbatum. Sepals and 
petals whitish ; lip ochre coloured, very thick and nar¬ 
row. 
C. trulla. —This curious species has bright green 
flowers, the large trowel-shaped lip bearing stained with 
red in the centre and front. 
C. triodon. —Flowers large, glaucous, bluish green ; 
sepals reflexed ; petals upright. 
C. viridi-flavum. —Flowers yellowish green ilp ; 
massive, wax-like, bright yellow inside. 
C. Wailesii is in the way of viride-flavum, but 
nearly all pale green, the large helmetted labellum being 
uppermost, and the petals turned down. A native of 
Honduras. 
C. Warscewiczii. —Near to C. discolor. Flowers 
in close pendulous raceme. Sepals and petals greenish. 
Lip helmetted, spreading into a thin 3-lobed limb, the 
middle lobe of which is prolonged, and diverges into 
two fringed halves at the extremity, pale green, with 
emerald veins. It has the fragrance of Aerides 
odoratum. — James O'Brien. 
Laelia amanda (Cattleya Rothschildiana). 
—A fine three-flowered spike of this rare Orchid comes 
to us from Messrs. Wm. Thomson & Son, of Tweed 
Vineyards, Clovenfords. The flowers, which are about 
five inches across, have broad sepals and petals of a 
warm rosy lilac tint, and handsome trilobed, fringed 
labellum, pale mauve, exquisitely reticulated with 
brownish crimson. The column is pure white heavily 
flaked with bright violet. Altogether it is a lovely 
plant, when grown as Messrs. Thomson grow it. Its 
flowers seem to partake much more of the Cattleya than 
the Laelia, its pollen masses, too, proving its inclination 
in that direction, for but four are perfect and the other 
four in a very rudimentary condition. 
Odontoglossum Krameri.—An excellent figure 
of this charming species is given in the July number 
of the Illustration Horticolc. In its delicate colour¬ 
ing it reminds one more of a Phalienopsis than of 
an Odontoglossum, though of course in no other char¬ 
acter. The flowers are freely produced and last for a 
considerable time. It was discovered in Costa Rica by 
M. Kramer, a collector for Messrs Yeitch and Sons, in 
whose collection it first flowered in 1868. The spikes 
bear from 3 to 7 flowers, which measure 1 j ins. in 
diameter ; the sepals and petals are sub-equal and 
similar in colour, which is pale violet-red with hroad 
white margins ; the lip is $ in. broad, the neck yellow, 
and the sub-quadrate limb of a pale violet-red, with a 
concentric red-brown band at the base. Mr. H. J. 
Buchan, Wilton Lodge, Southampton, showed a flower¬ 
ing plant of it at South Kensington, on Wednesdav, 
for which he received a Cultural Commendation. 
FLORICULTURE. 
Single and Pompon Dahlias. —I confess that I 
hold a decided opinion to the effect that the newer 
varieties have become much too large for ordinary in¬ 
door decoration. That is the impression left on my 
mind by what I saw at the Crystal Palace on Friday 
last, and again in the Conservatory of the Royal Horti¬ 
cultural Society at South Kensington on Tuesday. If 
I had to decorate a table round which thirty or fifty 
persons were to dine, then I could use single dahlias 
with confidence, but in the case of single pieces on the 
dinner table, or decorations for a dinner party of eight 
or ten, the single dahlias are generally too large and 
formal. I have this season seen a great many centre 
pieces for the table put up for competition, but scarcely 
in one of them have I seen a bloom of a single dahlia. 
This leads to the inference that our best known decora¬ 
tors for the table eschews them. 
Their use for decorative iiurposes in a cut state will 
decline, and that speedily, unless some new departure 
is made. I think we should do nicely if we threw away 
two-thirds of the named varieties, and confined our¬ 
selves (that is those of us who grow them for decorative 
purposes) to the pretty small flowered varieties of the 
gracilis type. Mr. Ware, of Tottenham, and Mr. H. 
Cannell, of Swanley, have these in variety; pretty little 
flowers, small in size, and much less formal in appearance 
than one-half of the named flowers. The blooms of these 
can be used with effect in single vases, but it is necessary 
that they be sparingly employed. 
I am quite appreciative of the beauty of the Single 
Dahlias when set up in triangular shaped bunches as 
Messrs. J. Cheat & Sons, and others, had them at the 
Crystal Palace on Friday, and at South Kensington on 
Tuesday. No one can help admiring them, they are 
bright and very effective when seen in this way, but in 
the garden they are much less free of bloom, and are 
not nearly so valuable from a decorative point of view 
as the double Pompon varieties. Some one said at the 
Crystal Palace, that the Pompon varieties would take 
the place of the single flowers, my reply-to this obser¬ 
vation, was, the single types have never taken the 
place of the Pompon varieties ; they have two great 
advantages over the single varieties, they are remarka¬ 
bly free of bloom, and they have generally dwarf 
upright habits of growth, that enables them to show 
off their flowers to the best advantage. Of how many 
named varieties of single Dahlias, can this he said? I 
have been amusing myself with blooming seedlings 
this season, and there is scarcely one in a dozen that is 
of good habit, they are of loose spreading growth, in 
many instances the flowers hang down their heads in 
an irregular fashion. 
I have just made a selection of the best Pompon 
Dahlias, and the varieties run as follows :—Lady 
Blanche, white ; Gem, bright crimson ; White Aster, 
white ; Darkness, maroon, very dark ; E. F. Jungker, 
amber, very pretty ; Flora Macdonald, primrose ; Little 
Bobby, dark crimson ; Fanny Weiner, yellow, slightly 
