May 31, 1890. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
619 
SEASONABLE WORK IN THE 
GARDEN. 
Stove and Greenhouse Climbers. —Inorderto prevent 
undue shading by too dense crowding of the shoots, a 
quantity of the weaker ones of such things as 
Clerodendrons, Passion-flowers, Allamandas, Tacsonias, 
and plants of a similar nature should be pruned away, 
and a sufficient number of the stronger ones left to 
occupy the space profitably without unduly obstructing 
the light. Those that are left should, moreover, be laid 
in at full length, because they continue to produce flowers 
in most cases as growth advances. The flowers 
terminate the young growths of Clerodendron, hence 
the necessity of allowing the shoots to proceed 
unchecked. 
Impatiens Sultani. —So useful is this plant for the 
decoration of stoves and greenhouses, that successive 
batches of it should be sown for the sake of variety in 
a small state, where a few only of large plants are 
admissible. It quickly comes into bloom from seeds, 
and plants so raised are more shapely and bushy than 
those obtained from cuttings. 
Stove Ferns. —These will now require copious 
supplies of water, as the young foliage, especially under 
the influence of light and a high temperature, transpires 
a large amount of moisture. If not already done, the 
shabby old fronds—especially if infested with scale- 
should be removed. Shade should only be given in the 
hottest parts of the day, in order to give rigidity to the 
young fronds. By full exposure, such as is given in 
gardens where Ferns are grown for market purposes, 
many beautiful tints of colour are brought out. 
Heaths and Epacris. — Winter-flowering kinds 
which were pruned down and re-start.ed at the proper 
time should now be prepared by hardening off for 
standing in the full sun a little later on. If stood 
behind a north wall or under the partial shade of trees, 
the foliage will soon acquire firmness. In the absence 
of such convenience a temporary framework could be 
erected, over which light tiffany might be thrown. 
Azaleas and Rhododendrons. —These may be 
treated much in the same way as Heaths, for like them 
they cannot be safely turned out of doors in full sun with¬ 
out disfiguring and browning the foliage, until it gets 
hardened by a dry atmosphere and a free exposure to 
light, with the air circulating freely amongst the 
stems and foliage. 
Pelargoniums. —Small plants intended for flowering 
later on should be kept cool and well ventilated night 
and day. Under these conditions they will require a 
large amount of moisture in proportion to the size of 
the pots and the quantity of foliage upon them. Small 
plants intended for late flowering should not be neg¬ 
lected in the matter of re-potting when they require it. 
See that they do not get infested with green-fly. 
Chrysanthemums in the Open Ground. — The 
nights are now sufficiently mild to warrant the planting 
out of batches of plants intended to be grown to the 
flowering stage in the open air. If properly hardened 
off as they ought to have been before this time they 
may be planted forthwith and given a good watering, 
so that they may grow away without check. 
Dahlias. —These should by this time be well 
hardened off, and planting may therefore be proceeded 
with at once. In the northern counties, where bedding 
arrangements are executed rather late, it is the usual 
custom to leave such things as Dahlias, Heliotropes 
and Marigolds to the last. It is a good plan to drive 
the permanent stakes before planting, so as not to 
disturb the roots. 
V.ineries. —The latest houses of Black Hamburgh 
will now be in flower, and must be attended to in the 
way of looping down, and stopping from time to time. 
The process of setting will be much facilitated if the 
atmosphere be kept rather drier than usual, and the 
house well ventilated. The thinning of the earlier 
kinds should be hastened as much as possible, and be 
completed before the berries become crowded. 
Melons. —As the roots of successional batches of 
plants protrude through the sides of the mounds of 
soil fresh material should be added. Give liberal 
supplies of moisture, but at the same time see that the 
soil does not get sodden. Keep the house dry, and 
ventilate well when the plants are in flower. Melons 
in pits and frames should be thinned to three or four 
stems, according to the space at command, and stopped 
when they have grown nearly the width of the frame, 
to encourage the production of flowering shoots. 
Strawberries. —Plants that have been forced during 
winter may be utilised by making plantations in the 
open ground. The young crowns produced will soon 
come into flower, and produce crops that will prove 
useful in autumn after the ordinary batches have all 
been gathered. Mulch and water plantations in dry 
and light soils. 
Figs on Walls. — The young shoots will be 
encouraged to come more quickly into a fruiting stage 
if pinched above the fifth leaf. The weak shoots that 
are not wanted, or for which there is no room, should 
be cut away to allow light and air to play freely on 
those that will bear fruit. 
--——-— 
ORCHID NOT ES AND G LEANINGS. 
Orchid Growers’ Calendar. 
Now that many varieties of Dendrobiums are well 
advanced with their growth, it is a good opportunity to 
give any of them a few pieces of peat if they are 
pushing new roots freely ; for it often happens that 
in the case of small plants a lump of good fibrous peat 
put on the top of the pot or basket, and under a batch 
of new roots, greatly helps a plant without disturbing 
it in any way. If, however, the compost in the pot or 
basket is quite worn out, it is far the best plan to take 
the plant right out and thoroughly re-pot it. Top¬ 
dressing should always be done with discretion, as it 
is often an evil. There are seasons of the year when 
it is not advisable to disturb certain plants, requiring 
nourishment ; a little fresh compost on the surface, 
into which the new roots may run, will thereby procure 
them the food they need. It will also help to protect them 
from the ravages of woodlice or cockroaches, for they 
would appear to'be choice morsels if we may judge by 
the way they are eaten where woodlice are not kept 
well under. 
Now that so many plants are in flower in the Orchid 
houses, there should be kindly consideration shown 
towards weakly plants, to see that they do not overtax 
themselves by carrying their flower spikes for too long 
a period, when they can so well be spared. It is very 
well to allow strong plants to carry their flowers for a 
long period, but weak ones ought to be eased as soon 
as they have developed their flowers and proved them¬ 
selves true or otherwise. 
If Outram’s Flower Holders are used the flowers may 
remain in water close to the foliage of the plants from 
which they have been cut, and so the plants are saved 
any undue strain, and the flowers are still at hand. 
Plants of Vanda ccerulea growing in crocks with a 
layer of living sphagnum on the top will now require 
to be kept thoroughly moist and in a light airy part of 
the Cattleya house, while V. suavis, V. insignis, and 
V. tricolor varieties would probably be all the better 
for a surfacing of living sphagnum. 
Mexican Delias should now have a thorough drench¬ 
ing with the syringe or rose water-pot in the afternoon, 
and free ventilation day and night, under which treat¬ 
ment both white and coloured varieties will in due 
course push flower-spikes freely. Lselia harpophylla, 
L. flava and L. cinnabarina pushing new growths, 
should be re-potted nowjjif necessary. — JF. P. 
Orchids from Westmount, Glasgow. 
A fine boxful of Orchid blooms reached us the other 
day from Mr. David Wilson, The Gardens, Westmount, 
Kelvinside, Glasgow. Amongst them was a fine bloom 
of Cattleya labiata W"arneri, of great size and rich in 
colour. A flower of Odontoglossum crispum, with very 
broad imbricated sepals and petals, measured 4 ins. 
across the former. There were also magnificently 
grown and richly blotched flowers of 0. triumphans 
and 0. luteo-purpureum. One of the blooms of the 
latter (No. 1) was from a plant Mr. Wilson received 
under the name of 0. luteo-purpureum magnificum, 
which it might well he, for the flowers were large and 
rich in colour, measuring 4^ ins. across the sepals or 
petals ; but sucb a variety does not seem to have been 
described. Nos. 2 and 3 are forms of 0. crispum 
Andersonianum, which differ in the markings, but not 
to such an extent as to warrant any special name. 
Accompanying them were some charming flowers of 
0. Cervantesii, and two forms of tlie variety 0. C. 
decorum. One of them had a very deeply lobed lip, 
with large but irregular deep purple blotches and 
markings of various shapes. The sepals and petals had 
also large blotches on the basal portion. This, we 
consider, was the more typical form of 0. c. decorum. 
The other had a large less deeply lobed lip, but the 
blotches were fewer, smaller, and less richly coloured. 
Cypripedium barbatum grandiflorum. 
There is a fine group of this hold and handsome 
Cypripedium in one of the houses at Syon House, 
Brentford. Each plant bears from ten to sixteen 
flowers, and, taken in the aggregate, the latter are so 
effective that one wonders the variety should take so 
long a time to get distributed in gardens. The upper 
sepal is sub-orbicular, white, marked with dark green 
lines at the base, and with purple lines upwards, as 
well as on the other sides. The petals are rose, 
suffused with green and striped with purple, while the 
huge lip is of a dark purple and shining. The long 
flower stalks and large and richly coloured flowers 
make this a useful subject for cutting. 
Oncidium sphacelatum. 
Amongst the spring-flowering species of Oncidiums 
this is certainly one of the best, on account of the 
relative size of the flowers, and the enormous quantity 
of them produced. There is a number of plants at 
Syon House, Brentford, with stems from 3 ft. to 4 ft. 
high, and panicled throughout the greater part of their 
length. The flowers are about the size of those of O. 
Wentworthianum, and have a large yellow lip, spotted 
with brown on the disc and crest. The wavy sepals 
and petals are spotted with the same hue on the upper 
half, the ground colour being yellow. It is getting 
distributed in gardens under the name of 0. Philipp- 
siana. 
Masdevallia coriacea. 
Although lacking the purity of M. tovarensis, or the 
grandeur of the M. Veitchii and M. coccinea types, this 
constitutes an interesting species of medium size, 
producing, when well grown as at Gunnersbury Park, 
Acton, an enormous quantity of flowers. It is grown 
in a large pan, and it would appear that every crown 
has produced a flower borne on scapes about 6 ins. high. 
The tube is widely cylindrical, and yellowish white, 
more or less spotted with purple, as are the free 
portions of the sepals, which are produced into long 
points but hardly tailed as in many other species of 
similar size. The specific name has been suggested by 
the leathery character of tfle flowers. The species is 
also sometimes seen in gardens under the name of M. 
Briickmiilleri, which was given to it when first 
introduced alive, in the belief that it was new. 
Masdevallia Veitchiana. 
When grown as at Gunnersbury Park this species is 
more entitled to the name M. V. grandiflora than in 
many cases where that distinction is given it. We 
noted some specimens the other week, the flowers of 
which measured 6 ins. across the sepals. The upper 
sepal and the outer sides of the lateral ones are covered 
with short violet papillae, whereas the contiguous edges 
of the latter are pure orange-scarlet. 
Dendrobium moschatum. 
The stems of this species vary from 4 ft. to 6 ft. in 
height, and bear pendulous racemes of flowers from 
near the apex of the previous year’s wood. The type 
has flowers from 3 ins. to 4 ins. in diameter, and the 
sepals and petals are nankeen-yellow, netted with 
darker veins, and tinted with rose towards the apex. 
The curiously slipper-shaped lip is densely hairy on 
both surfaces, and furnished with a pair of large 
purple-maroon blotches surrounded with yellow. There 
is a variety named D. m. Calceolaria with smaller 
flowers of a much richer orange-yellow, and with 
darker veins than the type. The variety is by some 
considered a species—namely, D. Calceolaria, some¬ 
times misspelt D. Calceolus. We noted both the type 
and the variety flowering at Wytham Abbey, Oxford, 
the other day. 
L/elia purpurata Brysiana. 
A very remarkable specimen of this beautiful Lselia is 
flowering in the collection of T. It. Watt, Esq., The 
Briars, Chislehurst. The spike is producing five large 
handsome flowers, which are of unusual size. The 
sepals and petals are suffused with deep rose, the latter 
being very broad, and measuring 8J ins. across. The 
lip is large and open, of a bright crimson-purple, with 
the purple lines running high up in the throat; the 
base of the lip is rosy, with purple lines, and measures 
over 2J ins. across. The plant was one of an im¬ 
portation of Messrs. F. Sander & Co., in October of 
1888. — Visitor. 
-- 
INFLUENCE OF MAN ON VEGE¬ 
TATION. 
“ The Unintentional Agency of Man on the Floras of 
North America, South Africa, and St. Helena,” was 
the subject of a most interesting and instructive paper, 
read by Dr. James W. H. Trail, professor of botany in 
Aberdeen University, before the April meeting of the 
Aberdeen Natural History Society. “The unintentional 
agency of man has,” said Dr. Trail, “modified the floras 
