764 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
July 28, 1888. 
expel damp, especially in houses where Muscats are 
grown. Shut up early in the afternoon. In houses 
where the berries are still swelling, the borders must on 
no account he allowed to become dry, especially if the 
Tines are planted inside. In the case of outside 
borders this is not so urgent, considering the amount 
of rain that has fallen lately. Special care must also 
be taken of borders in which Madresfield Court is 
planted, seeing that the berries are so liable to split 
when the roots have an unlimited supply of moisture. 
As many leaves as it is possible to expose to light without 
crowding should be allowed on the shoots beyond the 
bunches, so as to part with the superfluous moisture. 
Peaches on Walls. —The almost incessant rain 
has caused an excess of growth on Peaches, Nectarines, 
and wall trees in general, which must be got under, or 
the balance of them, in many instances, will he 
destroyed, the proper ripening of the shoots prevented, 
and next year’s crop of fruit problematical, or failure 
certain. Work of all kinds in the open garden has no 
doubt been retarded by the enormous increase of weeds, 
hut special attention should be devoted to the trees 
before it is too late. All laterals should be pinched 
before they make their influence felt, and the vigour 
of gross shoots should be repressed by pinching them 
and tying in closely, in order to prevent the necessity 
of removing them altogether. The swelling of the 
fruit will be greatly promoted by the abundance of 
moisture, but sunshine will be greatly wanted later on 
to assist in developing flavour, otherwise the produce 
will be insipid. 
Bush Fruit. —In districts at all infested with 
birds—particularly blackbirds, thrushes, and wood 
pigeons—it will be necessary to net a portion of the 
Gooseberries, Currants, and Easpberries, while in the 
case of Cherries this is an absolute necessity every¬ 
where. A light framework, over which a net could be 
thrown, would make it vastly more convenient for the 
gathering of the fruit than the system often adopted of 
simply placing the net over the bushes themselves. To 
facilitate the process and lessen the expense, growers 
would do well to grow late fruits in a square by them¬ 
selves, when there would not be the waste of netting as 
occurs when early and late kinds are mixed on the same 
piece of ground. _ 
THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 
Asparagus and Sea Kale. —In order to assist the 
crowns that are intended for forcing, liquid manure 
should be given liberally just now, when rapid progress 
is being made. After so much rain it will not be 
necessary to dilute the manure to such an extent as it 
should be when the ground is in a dry state. The 
exact amount cannot be given in figures, as the manure 
varies so greatly at different places. Eain water is in 
many cases allowed to run into the manure tank, often 
diluting it to an injurious esteDT, and under such 
circumstances no dilution is necessary. Perhaps the 
time is not so far distant when cultivators at private 
establishments will recognise the value of drainings 
from stables, and husband their resources in a more 
economical manner than is done at present. 
Peas. —The conditions which prevail at present are 
diametrically opposite to those of last year at this time, 
when there was a general outcry that vegetables of all 
kinds were failing on account of drought. This year 
many will probably find that the taller-growing kinds 
of Peas at least have out-grown their stakes, and later 
on must topple over for want of support, and cover up 
the young swelling pods, excluding light. This is a 
more serious matter than at first sight appears, as the 
crop is greatly injured thereby. The points to be 
kept in view are that the taller-growing kinds should 
he provided with stakes sufficiently or reasonably long 
to guard against the tops falling over, and that they 
should be well exposed to light by sowing at good 
distances apart. 
--«£<-=- 
ORCHID NOTES AND GLEANINGS. 
_ _ 
_ ♦ ■ 
Curious Orchids. 
There has flowered with me a curious Orchid, which I 
found among an imported lot of Dendrobium hetero- 
carpum. Perhaps some of your readers might recognise 
it by the following description. The flowers have 
straw-coloured sepals and petals, while the lip is pale 
yellow, fringed with short black hairs, and curved 
upwards towards the column. The spike of bloom at 
a little distance resembles a small ear of one-sided 
black Oats when ripe, the black-fringed lip looking 
like ripe grain set in pale straw-coloured chaff. Each 
flower is about half-an-inch across, and closely set and 
numerous, being produced on both old and new growth. 
The stems are rather sinuous, not unlike the habit of 
a small Dendrobe, but there are no such decided nodes. 
The old growth that first bloomed with me had four 
stems, one of which died. Of the three that were left 
the small leafless stem was the first new one with me ; 
the other two are the growth, of which you saw the 
dead bloom, and its successor. I have only one Eria— 
E. pubescens—and I do not know the others by sight, 
therefore I cannot say whether this may be one of them. 
I once thought it a Dendrobe, and afterwards an 
Epidendrum, so you will perceive that my ignorance of 
it is dense. It would be very curiously effective in 
bloom upon a strong plant. As 1 found it among 
Dendrobium heterocarpum, I hung it near the light, 
alongside plants of that species. 
I am particularly fond of queer Orchids, unpopular 
for some reason or other, and their beauty—like that 
of the bulldog—is something that never grows plain or 
inexhaustible. I wish Orchids would grow half as 
freely from seed as they will produce it. They can be 
made to seed like weeds, but to obtain seedlings is a 
very different thing. I have a number of pods of 
interesting crosses, and in order to be the more sure of 
hybridisation, I am careful to leave the pollen masses 
of the female parent undisturbed. The swelling of the 
column soon throws the capsule off, but the cross has 
previously been effected. There are pods at present of 
the following Dendrobium bigibbum X D. hetero¬ 
carpum, D. Dalhousianum X D. thyrsiflorum, Lycaste 
cruentum X L. Skinned, Lcelia anceps X Sophronitis 
grandiflora, Zygopetalum Mackayi (curious and ripe) 
X Epidendrum ciliolare and Oncidium tigrinum un- 
guiculatum, 0. - papilio majus X 0. praetextum, 
Phalfenopsis Luddemanniana X P. grandiflora, 
Cattleya citrina and C. Mossise, both ways, and large 
pods ; Odontoglossum maculatum X 0. Rossii majus, 
0. Pescatorei X (Erstedii majus. Some of these have 
ripened, and all are well formed, but I do not know 
that there is much hope of seeing young plants unless 
from the Phalaenopsids, and the Cattleyas and Lfelia. 
But I cannot resist making pods—perhaps from long 
habit of crossing florists’ flowers, and other things. 
I have been passionately fond of Orchids from my 
youth up, and liked to watch the few my father (the 
late Dr. Horner, of Hull), grew while I was a boy. I 
have a plant of Cypripedium calceolus that I value, 
because it was a veritable wild one found in Craven— 
not many miles from here. I expect it has disappeared 
now, for this was many years ago. It is a good type, 
and I nearly succeeded this year in crossing it with C. 
spectabile, but it just would not wait. It would be a 
lovely cross. Next year I will try to borrow a C. 
spectabile flower if I am likely to be disappointed again. 
This year I had a very lovely form of 0. crispum ; it 
may not be unusual, but I have not met with the type 
anywhere yet. It was pure white in ground colour, 
but all the markings of columns and lips were of the 
loveliest canary-yellow ; some of the blooms had sepals 
and petals spotted with the same bright yellow. It was 
peculiarly lovely, and happily of a broad-petalled and 
close-flowered type. Our pet name for it is “Golden 
Queen.” It was the sweetest 0. crispum I have seen, 
and the new growth is very much stronger than the 
one that bloomed. It looked so fair, with the column 
different from the usual cockroachy appearance. 
A Bulbophyllum has been in flower—an amusing 
thing—buff-yellow in colour, and richly spotted with 
red behind. It was a large flower, some 2 ins. across, 
with a conical cradle-like lip that rocked easily. The 
lip had a sort of yellow horseshoe mark and shape at 
the base, and hung by an elastic yellow strap. There 
was the usual well-like depression of the stigmatic 
surface under the rostellum. I remember Darwin 
( Fertilisation of Orchids ) said he hardly knew the use 
of the rocking lip, and it occurred to me that if any 
insect of weight settled on the inner half of the move- 
able lip it might get tilted over, and would land head¬ 
foremost at the bottom of the well, leaving any pollinia 
it might have adhering to its head very near where it 
ought to he for fertilisation. But this is only one of 
those guesses and wonderments that Orchids so often 
suggest. For many years I could not do with them, 
owing to the lack of a sufficiently fixed abode, and in 
those days I grew—and still do—our own Fly and Bee 
Orchis. They do admirably from year to year in the 
Auricula houses in 8-iu. pots in groups, with half the 
contents pieces of limestone and the other part heavy 
yellow loam. I have kept them in the same pots for 
years, and they last much longer than in wild life, 
being stronger than any I have seen about the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Bath, excepting the Bee Orchis. In the 
course of these years I have seen them illustrate the 
fact that sometimes not one is to be found where they 
are known to grow. All my Bee Orchis remained 
underground about two years ago perfectly dormant, 
and bloomed as usual the next season. I looked in 
terror when they did not appear to see what ailed the 
tubers, but they were sound and fresh. I am sorry to 
say I did not note whether in the year of dormancy 
they made the usual new tuber out of the “inner 
consciousness ” of these sleeping ones, or whether they 
awoke out of their trance refreshed with a phenomenal 
sleep. 
But I hardly know how a tuber could make a new 
one without some form of stem growth, for the new 
tuber is given off from the stem base, and so supported 
largely by its leaves and fat fibres. I know a field, 
once full of Ophrys apifera, that was ruined by the 
owner gathering them for the house, by idly pulling 
up the blooming stems, and so asphyxiating the young 
tubers, leaving them buried alive. It took several 
years—during which they grew thinner and thinner—- 
but it did it. Another unpopular thing I hive is a 
fine plant of Bonatea speciosa, a very cool terrestrial 
Orchic. (Cape I think). Tubers are immense, almost like 
fangs of Asphodelus ramosus, and the flowers deliciously 
scented at night. Flowers with green sepals, petals 
white and narrow, curious lip, with three long green 
legs, something like a cross between our White 
Butterfly Orchis, and a green lizard. The tall spikes, 
at the top of very coriaceous foliage, are very odd¬ 
looking.— F. L). Horner, Burton-in-Lonsdale. 
Odontoglossum crispum virginale. 
Any fine form of Odontoglossum crispum is beautiful, 
but the large snow-white variety, with no other colour 
than a bright yellow base to the labellum and clear 
yellow tinge under the column, is equal to the very 
best in point of beauty. The usual brownish marks on 
the labellum and column are entirely absent, and a 
chaste-looking and lovely flower is the result. Such a 
one now bearing a grand spike,with flowers about 4 ins. 
across, and petals 1J in. wide, si in the cool Orchid- 
house at the Bight Hon. Lord Rothschild’s garden, 
Tring Park. Mr. Hill grows his Orchids to perfection, 
and a good thing has the satisfaction of appearing at 
its very best under his hands. 
Mormodes pardinum unicolor. 
It is to be regretted that both the typical form and 
the variety under notice—both Mexican Orchids—are 
not oftener seen under cultivation. Some growers 
regard the type as the most striking and handsome of 
the two, owing to the rich and dense spotting of brown 
on a yellow ground. In the variety under notice the 
sepals and petals are of a uniform deep lemon-yellow, 
the lip orange-yellow, and so powerfully aromatic as to 
be most agreeable some little distance away. It is 
otherwise known as M. citrinum or Catasetum citrinum, 
but, of course, differs from a true Catasetum in the 
twisted column and in the absence of the sensitive 
antennse for which that genus, as originally constituted, 
is remarkable. The total absence of any spotting would 
at first sight justify a distinct specific name ; hut the 
wedge-shaped, deeply three-lobed labellum recalls 
M. pardinum. The flowers are somewhat concave, 
which detracts from their apparent dimensions ; but 
they are really of good size and fleshy in substance, 
densely arranged along the Upper side of an arching 
raceme of some length. It is figured in the Botanical 
Magazine, t. 3879, and now flowering finely at Devon- 
hurst, Chiswick, Mr. Wright having received it from 
Mexico. 
Epidendrum atropurpureum Randii. 
From the typical very dark-coloured form of this 
species we have now a white variety, with several 
very distinct and beautiful intermediate ones, amongst 
which we locate that under notice. The deep brownish 
purple of the sepals and petals has given place to a 
uniform pale yellow, slightly tinted, it may be, with 
green. The lip—always of a different colour from the 
rest—is white in this instance, with numerous rosy 
purple lines, closely arranged, radiating over the basal 
part of the lamina. It has been flowering for the last 
six weeks in the collection at Studley House, Hammer¬ 
smith. 
Dendrobium MacCarthie/E. 
Since its original introduction to these islands in 1854, 
this showy-flowered species has several times been 
re-introduced, but few seem to cultivate it successfully 
for any length of time. Being a native of Ceylon, 
it requires to be grown in a warm, moist, but airy 
atmosphere, and even in winter when resting it 
should be kept in a high temperature. The flowers 
are produced from three to five together on drooping 
