Orchids at Eastwood Park, Glasgow, the residence of David Tod, Esq.—This collection of Orchids is doing well, especially the cool kinds, and the Cattleyas which latter are special favourites with Mr. Tod, since they do not require so much heat as some others. There are here many hundreds of Odontoglots, and we noticed some fine forms in bloom, especially in the large house, in which was a grand display of Odontoglossum Alexandræ, many of the plants with well furnished spikes. Of O. Pescatorei there are also some fine examples with vigorous branching panicles, and other wonderfully fine specimens, having massive pseudobulbs, which had produced noble spikes of blooms. Mr. Ewart, the gardener, takes great interest in the plants, which have much improved during the last two years.
There are two other houses filled with Odontoglots and Masdevallias. Here many of the Odontoglots are smaller, but they are doing well. We noticed two very fine specimens of Odontoglossum Andersonianum showing well for bloom, and these, Mr. Tod informed us, are very fine varieties. By their side stood the rare O. Ruckerii, just coming into flower. The collection also includes many other rare Odontoglots. In another house, half-span roofed, there is a numerous collection of miscellaneous Orchids, including some fine specimens of Phalænopsis Schilleriana and others. There are also good plants of Cattleyas of most of the leading kinds, as well as Lælias and Dendrobiums; and fine specimens of Cypripedium caudatum on the front stage are doing well, and had produced many flower spikes. In this house Odontoglossum Roezlii grows very freely, and is in a clean and healthy condition, the plants seeming to get the treatment they like. Mr. Tod parted with his fine specimens of this species last year, but the pieces that are left are making good plants.
Adjoining this house is a most splendid Fernery, beautifully laid out, and planted with the best Ferns, Palms, Begonias, &c., which are in vigorous health.—B. S. W.
PL. 117. LÆLIA HARPOPHYLLA.
LÆLIA HARPOPHYLLA.
[[Plate 117].]
Native of Brazil.
Epiphytal. Stems slender, terete, six inches to a foot high, invested with sheathing bracts, monophyllous. Leaves ligulate, acuminate, about an inch in breadth, dark green. Peduncle issuing from a longish terete sheath, and having raceme about six inches long. Flowers four to seven in a raceme, rather small in size, but highly coloured, and very attractive; sepals lanceolate, acute, one and three-quarter inch in length, and of a bright orange-vermilion; petals similar in size, form, and colour; lip three-lobed, the side lobes erect plane, of the some orange colour as the sepals, with the acute upper front angle whitish and somewhat drawn out, the margins just meeting over the column, the middle lobe creamy white, the disk marked with four orange-coloured lines, about twice as long as the side lobes, linear acuminate, recurved, with a crispy margin; keels nearly obsolete.
Lælia harpophylla, Reichenbach fil., in Gardeners’ Chronicle, 1873, 542; Floral Magazine, N.S., t. 372; Garden, xxiii., 116, t. 400.
This, observes Professor Reichenbach, is one of those curious plants which “are not decided species, and yet they must be named and registered. It would be Lælia cinnabarina, if it had not a stem as thin as that of a showy Pleurothallis, a single acuminate leaf, and much narrower and straighter parts of the flower.” * * * “Perhaps it is a mule between a Brassavola and Lælia cinnabarina?” Whatever its origin and direct relationship, there is no doubt that it is one of the most distinct and beautiful of Orchids, as it affords a colour that is not only rare, but exceedingly effective. The flowers may be considered small as compared with the majority of the species of Lælia, which, indeed, are generally large-flowered, and rank among the most gorgeous and showy of Orchids, but even in this species they measure fully three inches across. It is a singular fact, that most of the orchidaceous species with orange-vermilion flowers have blossoms smaller than those of other colours. We have often noticed this fact amongst the Orchids that we have met with, and, indeed, it my be observed through nearly all the genera, that there are no large-sized flowers of this orange or vermilion colour. We are, however, hopeful that our energetic collectors may succeed in importing some having this character. It is true the Sophronites grandiflora bears highly coloured vermilion-scarlet flowers which may be considered large in proportion to the size of the plant, and a most charming Orchid it is, but we should, nevertheless, welcome some examples, at least, of these brilliant and startling colours among those larger-growing subjects which produce larger flowers.