The Garden Magazine, May, 1924 
219 
has long been known in gardens though it is not common, while R. 
Imscbootiana, a new comer, is more generally known to-day. 
Closely related to Vanda is Arachnanthe, of which A. Catbcartii 
from the shady valleys of the eastern Himalayas and A. Lowii from 
Borneo are in cultivation. The last- 
named has a comparatively small clus¬ 
ter of leaves and flower-stems which 
hang down like cords to a length of 
from six to eight feet and are covered 
with numbers of star-shaped crimson 
spotted flowers of two kinds. 
The giant among Orchids of the 
eastern tropics is Grammatophyllum 
speciosum with leafy stems from six 
to ten feet long and racemes of many 
flowers, clear yellow spotted with deep 
red-purple, each flower six inches 
across, and occasionally as many as 
one hundred on a raceme. It first 
flowered in England with Messrs. 
Loddiges at Hackney in 1852. 
Very pleasing are the different 
species of Aerides with their many 
flowered, often cylindric racemes. One 
of the best known is A.multiflorum, 
native of Burmah, of which there are 
many forms including one named 
Veitchii with rose-purple lip and white 
dotted with rose petals and sepals. 
To A. Fieldingii also of Burmah the 
name of Fox-brush Aerides has been 
given in allusion to the shape of the 
inflorescence. Very similar to Aeirdes 
is Saccolabium of which the Javan 
S. Blumei with waxy, fragrant, rose- 
pink flowers is well-known. The lip 
resembles the keel of a ship and the 
flowers are densely crowded in cylin¬ 
dric racemes. Other species are 5 . 
Huttonii, S. giganteum, and A. bigib- 
bum, the latter with yellowish flowers 
each with triangular, fringed, white lip. 
Reciprocity among African Moths 
and Flowers 
A FR. 1 CA is remarkably poor in Orchids and there are very few 
with showy flowers known from that vast continent. There are a 
number of terrestrial species especially in the extreme south, and the 
most remarkable of all, Disa uniflora, has been mentioned as peculiar 
to Table Mountain. 
Of showy epiphytic species the finest hail from Madagascar. Two 
species of Eulophiella ( E. Elisabethae and E. Peetersiana ) are worthy 
of special mention. The first-named has many flowers in a raceme, each 
flower 11 inches across, the lip white with golden disk and white sepals 
and petals, the former marked with 
rose-color on the outside. In E. 
Peetersiana the racemes are more 
dense and the flowers, each about 3 
inches across, are rose-purple with a 
golden blotch on the lip. Several 
species of the spur-flowered Angraecum 
are indigenous in different parts of 
Africa. The pretty little A. Kotschyx 
grows in Zanzibar and on the adjacent 
mainland. On Reunion Island is 
found A. fragrans, the Bah am, whose 
leaves, known as Bourbon Tea, taste of 
bitter almonds and were at one time 
used medicinally to stimulate digestion 
and in pulmonary tuberculosis. A. 
hyaloides, with small white semi¬ 
transparent flowers, and the better- 
known A. citratum are of Madagas¬ 
car. So, too, is the handsome A. 
sesquipedale, the aristocrat of the genus 
and one of the most wonderful of 
Orchids. This species has strap¬ 
shaped, distichously arranged leaves 
and in habit resembles certain species 
of Vanda. The flowers, two to several 
on a raceme, are star-shaped, each from 
6-9 inches across, waxy in texture and 
pure white; the base of the labellum is 
projected into an enormous hollow spur 
from 12 to 14 inches in length at the 
bottom of which honey is secreted. 
Indigenous in the same island is a moth 
with a tongue sufficiently long to suck 
the nectar from the bottom of this 
spur, and it is the only insect that can 
remove the pollinia and effect the fer¬ 
tilization of the flowers. This is a 
marvellous example of mutual adapta¬ 
tion of flowers and moth for their 
common benefit. (See page 216.) 
—In triumphant contradiction of the 
commonly held belief that the Orchid is primarily “a rich man’s flower” 
comes Mrs. J. Norman Henry’s article in June Garden Magazine telling 
of her success with thirty or more Orchids in a tiny 6 x y ft. greenhouse “too 
small to be of any practical use, so everybody tells me,” writes Mrs. Henry, 
“and yet it has been and still is, for me, a perfect little Paradise .”— Ed. 
THE JUSTLY POPULAR CYMBIDIUM 
“A genus of Orchids which in quite recent years has been enormously 
developed by the hybridist is Cymbidium” (C. Paulwelsi shown here) 
A NEW TREE GARDEN FOR THE MIDDLE WEST 
ARTHUR G. ELDREDGE 
University of Illinois 
Memorial to J. Sterling Morton, Clear-visioned Pioneer and Secretary of Agriculture, Founded by l lis Son 
S MONG the gently rolling and heavily wooded hills near 
Lisle, Illinois, there is now coming into being an insti¬ 
tution that is destined to do great things not only for 
. the Middle West region where it is located, but for 
other parts of this country. It will accomplish for this region 
the same kind of great things that the Arnold Arboretum has 
done for the East; and even as that institution has showered its 
benefits into far distant sections, so will the Morton Arboretum 
in Illinois in time serve a similiar purpose and perhaps even to 
greater effect, since it is more favored in both scope and site. 
“for practical scientific research work in horticulture 
and agriculture, particularly in the growth and culture of trees, 
shrubs, vines, and grasses hy means of a great outdoor museum 
arranged for convenient study of every species, variety, and hybrid 
of the woody plants of the world able to support the climate of 
Illinois, such museum to he equipped with an herbarium, a ref¬ 
erence library, and laboratories for study of trees and other plants, 
with reference to their characters, relationships, economic value, 
geographical distributions and their improvement by selection and 
hybridisation, and for the publication of the results obtained in 
these laboratories by the officials and students of the Arboretum, in 
order to increase the general knowledge and love of trees and shrubs 
and bring about an increase and improvement in their growth and 
culture. ” 
And what an inspiration it was that led Mr. Joy Morton 
to perpetuate the memory of his father by the creation of so 
