2 
THE LADIES’ FLORAL CABINET. 
poets, and drawing largely from the writings of Peter Hen¬ 
derson, Rev. W. C. Gannett and others, for aid in her 
descriptions. 
Among the illustrations are the Dendrobium Devoni- 
anum, named after the sixth Duke of Devonshire, in whose 
gardens the plant first blossomed in 1840, having been 
brought from the Khasia Hills, India, 4,500 feet above the 
sea. The D. Ainswortkii, named after Dr. Ainsworth, 
of Manchester, England, which took the first prize at the 
Boston Horticultural Fair in 1883, as the finest specimen 
of this variety seen or known in this country; The D. 
Nobile, of which Peter Henderson says, “ It blossoms 
freely during the winter, and is one of the very few Orchids 
that will grow and blossom quite well in ordinary sitting- 
rooms ; ” the Masdevallia Veitchii, a native of Peru, but 
named after the famous English florist, James Veitch, a 
good example among “cool orchids.” The Cattleya, a 
numerous genus in the second tribe, has four magnificent 
examples shown, and all of them from Major Davis’ 
collection— C. Triancea , C. Chocoensis, C. Mossice, and 
C. Loddigesii. Of Cattleya in general, Peter Henderson 
wrote, “ What the rose and the lily are among garden 
flowers the Cattleya is among Orchids—prominently 
beautiful.” 
The genus Lcelia has two representatives, L. Autnm- 
nalis and L. Dayeana. A French florist claims that “ the 
Lcelia rivals, while it resembles the Cattleya.” Phalce- 
nopsis (the Butterfly Plant), has two representatives, the 
first P. Stuartiana (named after Mr. Stuart Low, Florist, 
London), is shown on the preceding page as well as a 
wood engraving can show the perfections of this beautiful 
and quite rare variety, but little known so far in our 
country; the other example is P. Schilleriana, Odonto- 
glossum (Tooth and Tongue), has three beautiful examples, 
O. Roezlii Album, 0 . Triumphans and O. Alexandrce, 
the latter illustration recalling with much vividness one of 
this variety, shown at a Saturday noon gathering of the 
Massachusetts Horticultural Society during the past year. 
Of the best known of the seven tribes of Orchids— Cypri- 
pediu 7 n —(Venus’s Slipper), there are shown C. Niveum, 
C. Haynaldianum and C. Spicerianum. 
It has been said that “ Orchids are the elite of the floral 
kingdom. The flowers are, without exception, the most 
curious and beautiful in nature.” While this is true, it is 
also true that they are not ashamed to make their homes 
among their friends, even if those friends do not move 
among the elite of fashion’s circles, and every year their 
admirers and growers increase, and their weird and won¬ 
derful shapes and colorings, first known among the Tro¬ 
pics, grace the homes of our Northern and Southern 
States. 
This sumptuous volume is published by Lee & Shepard, 
Boston, and it will doubtless find its way to the library of 
many of our readers. 
HARDY FLOWERS. 
PART 
N our last paper we alluded to the rock-border, and 
here we may offer a few suggestions on the subject. 
What we call “ Alpine plants,” meaning any plant from a 
mountainous region, do grow on inaccessible cliffs and 
rocky elevations, but if we attempt to grow them on the 
popular substitute for their habitat, usually on a heap of 
rocks and rubbish thrown together without any idea of 
natural conditions, we are very likely to meet with failure. 
The first idea in rock-gardening should be to give the 
plant sufficient drainage, while the surrounding and almost 
overlying rocks should prevent undue evaporation. The 
commonly accepted idea seems to be to build some clumsy 
mass of stone filled with “pockets,” into which are loosely 
stuffed some soil and an unfortunate plant. This is radi¬ 
cally wrong. Where the rockwork is elevated the chinks 
or crevices should communicate directly with the ground 
earth, or the plant will suffer from drought. The chinks 
should be narrower at the bottom than at the top, to pre¬ 
vent the soil from settling loosely, and the soil itself 
should contain a number of stones, from small pebbles to 
pieces the size of an egg. These give the plant foothold, 
so to speak. Whenever you see a rock-plant growing in 
some tiny crevice, hardly large enough, you would im¬ 
agine, to afford ingress for its slender roots, be sure that 
its tap-roots descend under the moist stones to some fis¬ 
sure filled with soil or decomposed rock, where variations 
of temperature or drought fail to affect it. We may here 
remark that very few Alpines thrive in horizontal fissures 
—another common mistake—some few Silenes being an 
II. 
exception, but they require space for their tap-roots to 
reach some large body of earth. 
One may readily make an efficient substitute for the 
elevated rockery. Choosing some spot naturally well 
drained, dig out the earth to the depth of two feet, put a 
layer six inches deep of stones and broken bricks ; then 
fill up with leaf-mould or peat and sand mixed. When 
planted, give them a mulching of small stones, covering 
the ground to the depth of an inch or two; this, while al¬ 
lowing the rain to penetrate, prevents evaporation. Now, 
having manufactured our ideal rockery, for the plants to 
dwell therein, we might make a charming border “ on the 
edge of the forest, like a fringe upon a petticoat,” as 
Rosalind saucily says of the succulents, Sedums and Sem- 
pervivums. The Sempervivums have one rather unique 
charm ; it is next to impossible to kill them—they fully 
deserve their name of “ everliving.” They multiply by 
offsets, or a single leaf may be broken off and planted, on 
the principle of those marine organisms who, or which, 
coolly break themselves into bits and form whole colonies. 
The Supervivums are commonly known as Houseleek or 
Hen and Chickens; the Sedums, or Stonecrop, are 
botanically related and similar. Of the former we have 
some twenty-five varieties from which to choose, but we 
must confess a weakness for the little S. Arachnoides, 
growing in a neat little rosette, with threads forming a 
mimic spider’s web from tip to tip of its leaves. Its 
specific name recalls the fate of the poor nymph Arachne, 
who, for her devotion to “ fancy work,” presumably cro- 
