Dendrobium Findleyanum is a free-growing plant, and its curiously knotted stems have a singular appearance. The blossoms are produced very freely; the sepals and petals are white, tipped with pale magenta, while the lip is white, with the apex rosy purple, and the throat or disk yellow. It flowers during March and April, and lasts for two or three weeks in beauty.
We find it does well in a pan or basket, suspended from the roof, in the East India house, where it can receive all the light possible, and be shaded slightly from the sun in summer. The material used about its roots must be rough peat and sphagnum moss. It needs a liberal supply of water during the summer season, and must be kept moist until it has completed its growth, when less water may be given, just sufficient to insure the plumpness of the stems.
Orchids at Summer House, Hammersmith, the Residence of J. T. Peacock, Esq.—The collection of Orchids grown by Mr. Peacock is truly surprising, as was the show of flower when we paid a visit to it in March last. There were then many hundreds of blooming Orchids, especially of Phalænopsis, of which there were in one house hundreds of flowers of the different species and varieties, the drooping spikes overhanging and mingling with each other, and presenting a striking picture, some being snowy white, and others of different shades of mauve colour; there were, moreover, some very good forms among them. In an adjoining house were some very fine plants of Dendrobiums, such as D. Findleyanum, D. crassinode, and D. Wardianum; also hundreds of flowers of D. Freemanii. In the same range of houses we saw a fine lot of Odontoglossum vexillarium, showing well for bloom. O. Phalænopsis was doing well, which we do not often see. Of O. Roezlii there were many fine plants in good health, as there were also of O. Alexandræ (crispum), of which a great number were in bloom. Cattleya citrina was well grown—better than we have seen it before; the plants were suspended from the roof. Lycaste Skinneri, of which we found a huge lot in bloom, were producing very fine flowers. We were surprised to see such fine plants of L. Skinneri alba in blossom. Mr. Peacock has been very fortunate in flowering these from an importation, as it is a rare and chaste variety. In the next house were many hundreds of Odontoglossum Alexandræ and O. Pescatorei, and other kinds; many of them were in bloom, and among them were some good varieties.
We also noted some good East Indian Orchids, many plants of Angræcum sesquipedale, and other kinds. There was a fine collection of Cattleyas in a large span-roofed house, amongst which were some good forms of C. Trianæ in full bloom; also a grand lot of Cymbidium eburneum in flower, the white blossoms with the graceful green foliage having a good effect. There were several other houses filled with Orchids. If Mr. Peacock continues as he has begun, he will presently have the largest collection of these plants in the country. That this is likely to be the case we may presume, for we saw several other new houses intended for Orchids in the course of construction. Mr. Vicary, the excellent gardener, is one who takes great interest in the collection under his charge, and therefore we may expect that good results will be assured.—B. S. W.
PL. 93. CATTLEYA SCHOFIELDIANA.
CATTLEYA SCHOFIELDIANA.
[[Plate 93].]
Native of Brazil.
Epiphytal. Stems (pseudobulbs) from one to one and a half foot long, slender, terete, slightly thickened near the top, jointed, the internodes nearly covered by whitish membranous sheaths, diphyllous. Leaves oblong obtuse, about six inches long and two inches wide, of a deep glossy green, shortly stalked, the stalks spotted behind with dull dark red. Flowers about two, large, six inches broad, and about the same in depth, very handsome, in the way of those of Cattleya granulosa; sepals ligulate-oblong, bluntly acute, the dorsal one over, the lateral ones rather under three inches long, nearly one inch broad, of an Indian or pale tawny yellow, having a flush of purple and a tinge of green, the whole spotted thickly with crimson-purple, the spots most numerous on the outer half of each lateral sepal; petals obovate, rounded at the apex, narrowed towards the base, about three inches long and one and a half inch broad, of the same colour as the sepals, the spots towards the edges coalescing in divergent, sometimes forked, lines, which run out to the margin; lip two and a half inches long, three-lobed, the lateral lobes whitish, large, obliquely ovate, meeting over the column, the middle lobe with a long narrow claw, and a small transversely reniform fimbriated blade, which, except at the pallid edges, is entirely covered by lamellæ and papulæ of the most beautiful magenta-purple, the claw-like portion having a dash of yellow in its ground colour. Column whitish, curved, hidden by the lateral lobes of the lip.
Cattleya Schofieldiana, Reichenbach fil., in Gardeners’ Chronicle, N.S. xviii., 808.