254 
THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
the beginning. Supposing the seed to have fallen by 
good chance on suitable soil, it has still many dangers 
to run when it begins to push its rootlet downwards and 
to expand its first pair of little leaves to sun and air. 
Taller plants may overshadow it, shutting out light 
and warmth; quick- growing grasses may draw away 
from its immediate neighborhood the moisture which 
it needs, and its story is soon told. It dies in early in¬ 
fancy, and by a dsath which may be termed violent. 
Although the plants which are falling into the sere 
and yellow leaf cannot be said exactly to watch over 
the rising generation, there are many species which 
show some kind of parental forethought for the welfare 
of the seeds they bring to maturity. They are not con¬ 
tent with allowing the seeds when ripe to fall down and 
grow up beside them, but they send them away to seek 
their fortunes in far-off fields and lanes and roadsides. 
Some seeds are provided with an apparatus not unlike 
an open umbrella, an umbrella with many ribs and no 
covering. The round feathered heads of the Dandelion 
are examples of this, and children who blow them to 
pieces to see the individual seeds sail away steadily on 
the still summer air, have no idea of the start they are 
giving these seeds in their struggle for life. All seeds 
do not start life so quietly. There is a little Bitter-cress 
(Cardamine impatiens) which grows in North Wales, 
whose erect linear-shaped seed pods as they dry up con¬ 
tract unequally, and by this unequal contraction cause 
the shells to burst and curl up gracefully above the 
summit of the pod. This violent bursting of the pod 
causes the seeds to fly out to a distance of three or four 
feet. An American species of Witch-hazel ( Hamamelis 
virginiana) shoots out its seeds to a distance of ten feet 
and more—but when anything done here is also done in 
America, it is naturally done on a larger scale. The 
yellow Balsam ( Impatiens noli-me-tangere), now rather 
rare as a wild plant in England, gets its botanical name 
from its propensity to fire off its seeds when touched or 
shaken by the wind. This scattering of the seeds gives 
them a fairer chance of finding unoccupied soil than 
they would otherwise have, and it is not so usual to find 
these species growing so close together as we find 
Daisies, for instance. In spite of its mild and placid 
appearance, the Daisy is a great warrior, its close, low- 
lying leaves shut out light and air from any unhappy 
seeds that chance to be underneath them, and field 
botanists soon get to know that there is little chance of 
finding many varieties where Daisies grow plentifully. 
Grass and Mosses hold their own against most antagon¬ 
ists, but Grass is not so very successful in its battles with 
the Daisy, as those who try to preserve the unbroken green 
of a favorite lawn often experience. Curiously enough, it 
is not always the seemingly strongest plants, plants with 
the toughest fibre and hardest texture of leaf, which win 
these floral contests. The small white or Dutch Clover 
I Trifolium repens), with a weakly, creeping stem, usually 
not much more than a foot in length, when introduced 
into New Zealand, attacked and defeated an indigenous 
species of Flax, an exceedingly tough, robust plant, with 
strong leaves over six feet high. The vegetable Goliath 
had to succumb to the floral David, and the little Clover 
is actually driving the big flax out of existence. This 
struggle for life among plants shows that the farmer’s 
antipathy to “weeds” is extremely well founded. 
Especially in the case of varieties cultivated by man ; 
when his protecting hand is withdrawn it is found that 
they are in great danger of being swept away by their 
many competitors for a livelihood. One result to which 
this botanical warfare largely contributes is that the 
flora of a district changes. Some species die out, and 
“ colonists ” come to take their place. Any one looking 
through an English flora will find that the number of 
plants marked “colonist,” an “alien or “native,” is 
not inconsiderable. And this is true not only of shrubs 
and small plants, but also of forest trees. The remains 
of the Hyrciuian forest, which in the time of Caesar was 
composed of trees which annually shed their leaves, is 
now mainly made up of Pines and Firs. But with re¬ 
spect to forests, there seems to be a rotation of various 
kinds of trees, the kind of tree which grows up to take 
the place of those decaying depending upon the light 
and air and other conditions which are afforded to the 
young saplings by the kind of tree already existing.— 
The Month. 
COOLHOUSE ORCHIDS. 
SECOND PAPER. 
While some of the Orchid tribe rejoice in the posses¬ 
sion of lengthy and—to a non-professional—incompre¬ 
hensible names, some of them are very pretty and har¬ 
monious, and so essentially feminine that I expect to 
hear of some enthusiastic Orchid lover bestowing upon 
his daughter such names as Calantlie, Vanda, or Ly- 
caste, like a certain chemist who is said to have named 
his daughters Ethyl, Methyl, Glycerine and Uranine. 
Indeed, Lycaste might be so used without offense, for 
it bears the name of a beautiful Sicilian, bestowed upon 
it by some gallant botanist. But to return to our sub¬ 
ject. The Cypripediums afford a number of varieties 
suitable for the cool house, though some of the finest 
sorts require tropic heat. Many species have beautiful 
leaves as well as flowers. They are dwarf, compact, 
and evergreen, producing their flowers from the centre 
of the leaves on an upright stalk. Unlike most Orchids, 
they have no thick, fleshy bulbs to supply them with 
nourishment. They require plenty of water during the 
growing season, and as they need little rest they should 
never be allowed to get dry. 
C. Lawrencianum is one of the finest varieties having 
ornamental leaves; the illustration gives a good idea of 
the general habit of this class. It does not come under 
the head of coolliouse Orchids, however, being a tropical 
species, like C. barbatum superbum, which it somewhat 
resembles. It is named in honor of Sir Trevor Law¬ 
rence, who is described by a writer in the London Gar¬ 
den as the Ulysses of Orchid culture. 
C. insigne is a good and well-known variety with light 
green leaves. It produces solitary flowers during the 
winter, remaining in bloom a considerable time; sepals 
and petals light green, dorsal petal tipped with white, 
spotted with brown; lip orange and brown. Though 
