On the left is a ‘rockery’ of tufa, planted with the hybrid Anthuriums which Messrs. Sander have been producing so industriously of late years. To my mind, an infant could make flowers as good as Anthuriums, if equipped with a sufficient quantity of sealing-wax, red and pink and white. Their form is clumsy, and grace they have none. But when they recognise a fashion, the wise cease to protest. Anthuriums are the fashion.
Since that is so, and many worthy persons will be interested, I name the hybrids here.
Of the Andreeanum type, raised by crossing its various forms:—Lawrenciae, pure white; Goliath, blood-red; Salmoniae, flesh-colour; Lady Godiva, white faintly tinged with flesh-colour; Albanense, deep red, spadix vermilion—this was one of the twelve ‘new plants’ which won the First Prize at the International Exhibition 1892.
Of the Rothschildianum type:—Saumon, salmon-colour; niveum, very large, whitish, with orange-red markings; aurantiacum, coloured like the yolk of egg; The Queen, evenly marked in red, orange, and white.
Overhead hang small plants of Phalaenopsis and Dendrobium; on a shelf above the Anthuriums, against the glass, two large specimens of the noble Cyp. bellatulum album—which with a despairing effort I have tried to sketch elsewhere—and no less than 380 plants of Cyp. Godefroyae, and its variety, Cyp. leucochilum, both white, heavily spotted with brownish purple.
The Vanda House
lies beyond. Only the tall species are here, for such gems as V. Kimballiana and Amesiana would be lost among these giants. But there is little to say about our Vandas beyond a general commendation of their fine stature and glossy leaves. It is not a genus which we study, and the plants belong to ordinary species—the best of their class, however. For the benefit of experts I may mention, among specimens of Vanda suavis, the Dalkeith variety, Rollison’s, Veitch’s, Wingate, and Manchester; among Vanda tricolor, planilabris—grandest of all—Dalkeith, aurea, Pattison’s, insignis, Rohaniana.
But Miss Joaquim must be mentioned (V. teres × V. Hookeriana), sepals and petals of a pretty rose colour, lip orange; a flower charming in itself, but still more notable as the product of a young lady’s enthusiasm. Miss Agnes Joaquim is the daughter of a Consul at Singapore, residing at Mount Narcis in the vicinity.