May 8. 1894. 
THE GARDENING WORLD. 
§63 
ORCHID NOTES AND GLEANINGS. 
By John Fraser, F.L.S., Kew. 
At the meeting of the Royal Horticultural Society 
on the 24th ult., the undermentioned Orchids 
received awards according to merit. 
Cypripedium Annie Measure', Nov. hyh. 
The seed parent of this hybrid was C. bellatulum 
and the pollen bearer C. Dayanum. The progeny is 
intermediate in character and form, and although 
dwarf is a great improvement upon C. bellatulum in 
that respect, being about 6 in. high. The leaves are 
oblong-elliptic and about equally marbled with dark 
green and pale grayish-green, and pretty. The upper 
sepal is roundish, pale yellow in the centre and the 
rest white, but all heavily lined and suffused with 
purple along the veins. The broadly oblong, 
declining petals are white and densely spotted with 
purple all over. The lip is moderate in size, some¬ 
what compressed laterally, and purple except at the 
tip, which is very pale. First-class Certificate. 
Exhibited by R. I. Measures, Esq, (gardener Mr. 
Henry Chapman), Cambridge Lodge, Camberwell. 
Octomeria diaphana. 
The stems of this interesting little plant are 3in. to 
4in. high, flattened and covered with sheaths. The 
leaf is lanceolate-elliptic, solitary, and terminal. 
The flowers are in small, terminal clusters, with 
lanceolate, white sepals and petals. The small lip 
is erect, and deep purple with a pale yellow edge. 
Botanical Certificate. Exhibited by R. I. Measures, 
Esq. 
Laelia cinnabarina. 
A WELL-FLOWERED piece of this beautiful Laelia bore 
nine flowers on one stem, and ten upon another. 
The sepals and petals are of a rich orange-.scarlet, 
and the lip is slightly paler. First-class Certificate. 
Exhibited by W. M. Appleton, Esq., Weston-super- 
Mare. 
Coelogyne Swanniana, Nov. sp. 
The pseudo-bulbs of this species vary from 3in. to 
6 in. in length, four angled, widest at the base, and 
narrowed upwards. The lanceolate elliptic leaves 
are leathery, 3-5 nerved and plaited. The habit and 
size of the plant is similar to that of C. ocellata, 
and it has pendulous racemes of bloom from the base 
of the younger pseudo-bulbs. The oblong sepals are 
of a pale straw-colour, and the linear petals similar 
in hue. The three lobed lip is of a rich umber and 
lined with forking, yellow veins. There are three 
strong, creamy white ridges and two short lateral 
ones, the whole being surrounded at the end by a 
brown line. Award of Merit. Exhibited by Messrs. 
F. Sander & Co., St. Albans. 
Phaius Oweniana, Nov. sp. 
This is similar in habit and form to P. grandifolius, 
but smaller in all its parts, and comes from Assam. 
The sepals are lanceolate, and of a deep shining 
brown, while the petals are narrower and darker. 
The lip has a bright yellow tube, externally and 
internally, with purple edges where the sides overlap ; 
the lamina is quadrate, cuspidate, slightly wavy at 
the edges and deep purple. The scape was 18 in. 
high and bore six flowers and buds. Award of Merit. 
Exhibited by Messrs. F. Sander & Co. 
Odontoglossum crispum Lowianum, Nov var. 
The flowers of this variety are round, very much 
imbricated, and have remarkably short segments. 
The sepals are broadly elliptic, white, with a small 
rich brown blotch in the centre and a broad purple 
band down the back. The petals are similar in 
shape, but remarkably involute at the edges, hooded 
at the apex, and white heavily suffused with brownish 
purple splashes round the sides. The lip is short, 
yellow at the base, and brownish purple upwards 
with a white blotch near the apex and some 
white lower down. The seven flowers on the plant 
were all closely alike in colour and form. Award of 
Merit. Exhibited by Messrs. Hugh Low & Co., 
Clapton. 
Miltonia stellata. 
The flowers of this species have a starry appearance, 
but they are very graceful and borne in great 
profusion in upright racemes. The sepals and petals 
are linear and pale yellow. The lip is oblong, 
constricted in the middle or a little below it, wavy 
at the sides, creamy white and spotted with purple 
on the lower half. The column wings are brown. 
Award of Merit. Exhibited by Messrs B. S. 
Williams & Son, Upper Holloway. 
Epidendrum radicans. 
A well-flowered specimen of this Epidendrum is a 
bold object. The tall rooting stems probably 
prevent it from being so frequently grown as it 
might otherwise be. The flowers are borne in 
terminal, long-stalked racemes, and are of moderate 
size, with lanceolate, brilliant scarlet sepals and 
petals. The three-lobed lip with toothed segments' 
is orange scarlet. Award of Merit. Exhibited by 
Messrs. B. S. Williams & Son. 
Odontoglossum crispum Florie, Nov. var. 
The sepals of this beautiful variety are ovate-elliptic, 
white suffused with pale rose and spotted with 
brown in the centre. The petals are wider with a 
prolonged point, white, spotted with purple towards 
the sides all round, and having a few brown spots on 
the middle. The lip is white with a bright cinnamon 
blotch in front of the yellow crest. The plant shown 
bore eleven large flowers on a spike. Award of 
Merit. Exhibited by De B. Crawshay, Esq. 
(gardener, Mr. Sidney Cooke), Rosefield, Sevenoaks. 
Bulbophyllum saurobephalum. 
This singular-looking species is a native of the 
Phillipines, and is chiefly remarkable for the 
unusually thick and fleshy character of the flower 
stems, which are spindle-shaped, drooping, and 
purple-red. The flowers are sessile and appear like 
insects of some kind settled upon the stem. The 
upper sepal is white with three brown nerves ; the 
lateral ones are adpressed to the scapes. The petals 
are minute; and the lip tongue-shaped, and black 
with yellow edges. Botanical Certificate. Exhibited 
by James O'Brien, Esq., Harrow-on-the-Hill. 
Cirrhopetaium Collettii. 
The habit of the plant and the arrangement of the 
flowers of this species are similar to those of C. 
umbellatum and C. picturatum. The lateral sepals 
are joined by their edges, 4in. long and bronzy red 
with deeper veins. The upper sepal is short, ovate, 
concave, yellow, lined with bronzy purple and 
furnished with long, flattened, purple fringes. The 
petals are small and similar to the upper sepal, but 
more pointed, ciliate in the lower portion, and 
furnished at the apex with a crest of flattened purple 
fringes. Botanical Certificate. Exhibited by the 
Director, Royal Gardens, Kew. 
Orchid Growers' Calendar. 
Potting. —This work must be pushed forward with 
all despatch, so that all the plants requiring it may be 
finished as quickly as possible. 
Cymbidium Lowianum.— As the plants go out of 
bloom they should be repotted. They are gross 
feeders, therefore it is necessary that the compost 
should be of a rich nature, one made up of one part 
each of peat, loam, chopped sphagnum, and dried 
cow manure, with coarse silver sand, we find suits 
them admirably. As they make large, fleshy roots 
in abundance, pots two sizes larger than those they 
are now growing in should be used, assuming that 
they are in good condition. "Water carefully for a 
week or two after they are repotted, as the fresh 
material will not dry up so quickly until the roots 
have taken hold of it, which they will not be slow to 
do. We grow ours with the Cattleyas, which seems 
to suit them well, for we always have plenty of 
bloom, and that is what we aim at. 
Oncidium phymatochilum.— What a pretty little 
Orchid this is ! Quite an amateur’s plant on account 
of its easy culture and the time it lasts in full beauty 
•—quite six weeks. It adapts itself to either pot or 
basket culture, but if potted in good peat and 
afforded a light, airy position it never fails to do well. 
An intermediate terperature suits it best. 
Removing Plants to Cooler Quarters. —Plants 
of Odontoglossum Harryanum, Miltonia vexillaria, 
Masdevallia toverensis, &c., that have been wintered 
in the Cattleya house, should now be removed to a 
cooler place. The warmest end of the Odonto¬ 
glossum crispum house will suit them well during 
the summer months. The flowers, too, of Miltonia, 
which are just about to expand, will be of a better 
colour if allowed to open in the cool. Do not syringe 
them overhead or the flowers will become spotted. 
Manure Water.— Plants in spike will be benefited 
if weak doses of manure water be given them once a 
week. Our plan, and one we have adopted with 
success for some years, is to dip the plants up to the 
rim in a pail of manure v/ater. A pinch of the best 
guano is dissolved in about four gallons of water, 
and in this the plants are plunged as stated above. 
All who' have seen our Odontoglossuras admit that 
they are fine, but I would here point out that only 
when a plant is in good condition, rooting freely, and 
carrying a spike, do we deem it necessary to afford 
any stimulant. 
Damping down with Manure Water. —This we 
think is an excellent plan. The arial roots feed on 
the ammonia thus given them, and plants that have 
a yellow and sickly appearance will become green in 
a few weeks. Nothing can be safer than when 
given in this form, and this is also a much better 
plan than putting layers of manure underneath the 
stages, which in time becomes stagnant.—C. 
- »*- - 
(Signings ftimn fh^ SDorlh 
Sctenc^. 
A Vegetable with a Pedigree.—A writer in 
discussing the antiquity of the cultivation of 
Asparagus inCkamber’s Journal, sa.ys that " of all the 
plants used for food, there is none which has been 
so long known, or has had, so to say, so distinguished 
a lineage as Asparagus. The first statement must 
surely be an oversight, or else fails to convey what 
the writer meant, for we have reason to believe that 
various kinds of corn belonging to the old world, 
and including wheat, oats, barley and rye, have really 
been cultivated for a much longer period than 
Asparagus. The first authenticated mention of the 
latter was by the poet Cratinus, who died about 425 
B.c. The more important cereals according to 
history must have been extensively cultivated long 
prior to that period, and their cultivation probably 
began when in danger of being exterminated. The 
aboriginal habitat of several of them cannot now 
be determined, and it is with difficulty that any 
trace of them in a really wild state can be given. 
That Asparagus should have been cultivated so early 
is, however, surprising. Cato the Elder, who was 
born in 234 b.c., wrote a work entitled De re Rustica, 
in which he treats of the proper cultivation of 
Asparagus. Pliny, about 60 a.d., says a good deal 
on the subject. He asserted that the soil about 
Ravenna was so favourable to its growth that three 
heads of it would weigh a Roman pound (about n 
ounces). If such was really the case, what 
becomes of our boasted progress in horticulture at 
the end of the nineteenth century, with our giant 
and colossal varieties of Asparagus. Pliny’s state¬ 
ment would leave us little to boast of, for we have 
never beaten the record apparently. 
Palms atthe mouth ofthe Thames. —As long 
ago as 1842, Bowerbank wrote a work or treatise on 
Fossil Fruits and Seeds of the London Clay. These 
it would appear were obtained from Sheppey. Since 
then there has been a considerable literature on the 
species of Nipadites, a genus of fossil Palms 
unearthed both in this country and upon the 
Continent. Elight species have been described by Mr. 
A. B. Rendle, M.A., B.Sc., F.L S., in the Journal oj 
the Linnean Society, Vol. xxx.. No. 207. All of the 
species have been found in the London clay at 
Sheppey, and three of them have been discovered 
elsewhere as well. The conditions under which 
they are found and the accompanying fossils of other 
plants and animals show that they grew in the 
blackish mud around the sea coasts or at the mouths 
of rivers just as the most nearly allied living Palms 
do at the present day. Many of the fruits are water 
worn, giving indication that they might have come 
Irom a considerable distance and had been rolled 
about for some time by the water before finally 
becoming stationary amongst the mud in which they 
were embedded. On the other hand, fruits discovered 
on the coast of Sussex would argue that they had 
dropped from the trees and germinated where found, 
because they consisted of an empty shell filled with 
sand. Along with the specimens found at West 
Wittering on the coast of Sussex, drift wood having 
a coniferous and dicotyledonous structure was found. 
Crabs, freshwater turtles, numerous fruits and seeds 
as well as stems and branches formed the associates 
of the fruits of Nipadites in the London clay at 
Sheppey. Such a collection would indicate the 
mouth of a large river. The climate at that time is 
reckoned to have been of a tropical or sub-tropical 
nature. 
Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs, by 
A. D. Webster. A valuable guide to planters of beautiful 
trees and shrubs for the adornment of parks and gardens. 
Price, 3S. ; post free, 3s. 3d. Publisher, Gardening World, 
r, Clement's Inn, Strand, Loudon, W.C, 
