50 
1HE florist’s JOURNAL. 
thrown out altogether ; but when touched gently, the anthers w r ill 
sometimes be thrown into the hollow style, and they are furnished 
with some glutinous matter at the base, which causes them to 
adhere to the stigma, or to any thing which they may chance 
to fall upon. The pseudo-bulb is compressed on both sides, and 
of a reddish brown; the leaves are ovate acuminated, green, 
beautifully mottled with a reddish brown, both on the upper and 
under side. This species flowers at various seasons ; but the 
Spring season is the time when it flow r ers the finest, and when 
the flowers are largest. The mode of treatment of this species, 
as w r ell as the whole genus, has been given in the Florist’s Journal 
for 1841. 
CULTURE OF THE AURICULA. 
In the culture of this most beautiful and highly bred flower 
there are three principal points which claim our attention : first, 
the soil or compost in which it is grown ; secondly, the different 
modes of propagating it, or obtaining new plants ; and thirdly, the 
general treatment of it at the different seasons of the year, and 
under varieties of soil and climate. 
Soil or Compost ,—the first of these, is the only one over which 
man has complete control; for the propagation, almost exclusively, 
and the cultivation, to a very great extent, are dependent upon 
nature. A florist may grow, or at all events attempt to grow, 
Auriculas in any soil or compost that he pleases ; but they will 
not succeed equally well in all; nor is it at all easy to say what is 
the specific difference of soil or compost that occasions a difference 
either of growth or of flowering. The atmosphere and the water 
which it holds in solution, and probably also differences of its 
electrical state, have an influence upon the growth of plants and 
the blooming of flowers, though the difference of these circum¬ 
stances is often so fine, that we are not able to allege any thing of 
it with absolute certainty. 
Hence, in those parts of the treatment of flow r ers which are 
most under the control of the cultivator, that cultivator is very 
apt to fall into quackery, and he is the more apt to do so in highly 
cultivated plants, because they are the most liable to be ruined by 
